![]() ![]() Within the past decade, more than 12 area priests have been publicly implicated in the sexual abuse of minors. In heavily Catholic Central Maryland, these are no academic questions. The recent publicity has also forced policy reviews within Catholicism’s fraternal citadel: What is the proper Christian response to accusers? To an accused brother? To the parish community? And does the priesthood’s celibate nature attract men who are earnestly fleeing their urges, only to leave them ill equipped in moments of temptation? And it has forced a nationwide soul-searching both inside the Church and out, all of it eventually arising from one profound question: What mechanism of the mind could so effectively suppress the conscience-especially the presumably higher conscience of a priest-that a man might permanently injure children entrusted to his care? The crisis contains disturbing truths about the power of human denial. More than 500 priests have since been accused, prompting legal actions that have drained Catholic coffers of up to $500 million. Sexual abuse by priests has rooted like a cancer within the body of the American Catholic Church, eluding most public detection until the early ’80s. But with charges mounting nationally that the Catholic church lacked the fortitude to police its own ranks, the pressure was on for a show of self-prosecution.Įven given the prospect that Maskell might be unjustly accused, he would have to fight for himself under the new rules-without the protective embrace of the institution that had nurtured him for his entire adulthood. In an earlier era, a concerned archbishop might have taken the accused priest aside, chastised him and transferred him discreetly to another diocese. (To this day Maskell believes the emerging scandal hastened his mother’s death months later.) Maskell’s mother learned something was wrong only after receiving phone calls asking the whereabouts of her son. His disappearance from Baltimore was cloaked in secrecy even fellow priests were denied details. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.Įscorted back to Holy Cross, his parish in South Baltimore, Maskell was given just hours to pack a bag and leave the rectory. The archdiocese, says this family source, countered with more restrictive choices: Either check in to a Connecticut psychiatric facility, or step down from the pulpit.
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