According to a study issued by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, more than 150 Catholic priests and other members of the clergy harmed more than 600 children alone in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
The’staggering’ amount of child abuse that occurred over a 60-year period in the oldest diocese in the United States was described in the 463-page study, which was made public on Wednesday.
Anthony G. Brown, the attorney general of Maryland, described the publication date as “a day of reckoning and a day of accountability” for the Catholic Church in Baltimore.
‘This report illustrates the depraved, systemic failure of the Archdiocese to protect the most vulnerable,’ Maryland Attorney General Anthony G Brown said. ‘Time and again, the Archdiocese chose to safeguard the institution and avoid scandal instead of protecting the children in its care.’
Starting in 2019, investigators reviewed hundreds of thousands of documents dating back to the 1940s that included ‘treatment reports, personnel records, transfer reports, and policies and procedures.’
Archbishop William Lori, the current Archbishop of Baltimore, called the report ‘a sad and painful reminder of the tremendous harm caused to innocent children and young people by some ministers of the Church.’
The archbishop issued an apology and offered an ‘unyielding public acknowledgment of the horrors of this era.’
The archdiocese has paid over $13million to about 300 victims since the 1980s, and has since instituted a zero-tolerance policy for clergy accused of sexual abuse.
The report found that abusers in the church ‘took advantage of the position of authority and respect afforded priests and other clergy in Catholic communities.’
It also found that many abusers continued their abuse even after reports or concerns were raised against them.
One example given was Father Anthony Joseph Maskell. Parents had reported disturbing attention Maskell was showing young people.
The same year archdiocese was sent a letter signed by members of his congregation, Sacred Heart of Mary in Baltimore, who said he was bringing ‘young girls into the rectory under suspicious circumstances and talk[ed] for hours.’
Despite these reports, Maskell continued to be employed by the archdiocese until 1994, including in multiple roles involving children.
In 1969, Maskell was transferred to Archbishop Keough High School, an all-girls school in Baltimore, where he worked as a guidance counselor. He was accused of abuse by at least 39 students at the school.
Maskell was never criminally charged, and he denied the allegations until his death in 2001.
The report came to the conclusion that Maryland should amend its statute of limitations for civil actions involving child sex abuse. Many of the victims waited until later in life to report their abuse due to repression or fear of retribution, but Maryland law currently bars plaintiffs from recourse if they are over the age of 38.
On Wednesday. the Maryland legislature passed a bill that would completely remove the current statute of limitations. It was sent to the desk of Governor Wes Moore, who has previously said he would sign the bill into law.
The report also asked the church to expand public accountability to other non-clerical employees of the archdiocese, including teachers, coaches, and deacons.
The report gave the example of John Merzbacher, who worked as a teacher at Baltimore’s Catholic Community Middle School, as well as three city public schools, from 1960 through 1979.
The report details some of Merzbacher’s most heinous crimes, including sexually and physically assaulting students, threatening them with guns, and instructing male students to rape female students at gunpoint.
According to the report, some of these acts were done in front of the school’s principal, Sister Eileen Weisman.
At least 27 students from Merzbacher’s seven years teaching at Catholic Community Middle School were identified as victims, and even more came forward from his teaching in Baltimore public schools.
Merzbacher, now 82, was eventually convicted of rape and child sexual abuse in 1994 and sentenced to serve four consecutive life sentences.
Of the 156 archdiocese employees identified in the report, ten of them were redacted upon release. Another 37 people were identified during grand jury proceedings, but a circuit court judge ruled that their names should be excluded until further proceedings.