If you have questions, please contact [emailprotected]. When Holy Cross parishioner Lynn Gerber Smith gave birth to an ailing baby, the priest rushed to the hospital and performed an emergency baptism. A tabloid TV show was rumored to be interested in the story. I said, No, not that I can think of. I didnt know what he was getting at, says Stacy. Edit a memorial you manage or suggest changes to the memorial manager. Sorry! Since then, general interest in the case has increased. In the churchs eyes, her credibility diminished with each new allegation. Most everything, however, was water logged beyond recognition. Like Mroz, Sister Cathy Cesnik also had members of the church, including priests, frequent her home. Several women even say that the priest claimed to be an actual gynecologist. A newspaper account from the time, however, describes the field as a dump., And county detective Sam Bowerman, an FBI-trained expert in criminal personality profiling, believes Cesniks murderer was a stranger. She alleges Maskell once forced her to have sex with a uniformed police officer and at least once to have sex with someone who gave the priest money. By early 1993, Jennifer had resumed her quest against Maskell through Towson lawyer Phil Dantes, who enlisted a colleague familiar with Keough to see if there was enough support for Jennifers claims to justify an investigation. In her minds eye, she saw him wearing the black clerical cape that he often favored during the winter, and she claims that he asked her to look deeply into his eyes and told her: You wont remember. The next morning, Tracy called Beverly Wallace and asked for the name of a therapist. To bolster their proposed legal maneuver, Dantes and colleague Jim Maggio ran an anonymous ad in The Sun seeking other alumni who might have memories from their days at Keough. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. There, 13-year-old Bill* felt like a bigshot whenever the priest would call him out of class at the parish school to chat, usually for several hours at a time, two or three times a week. Your account has been locked for 30 minutes due to too many failed sign in attempts. But he faced the multi-million-dollar civil suit filed in city circuit court. Was that on more than one occasion that [he] abused you?, Three that I remember, she said. ), Cruz believes there was a second man on the boat: stocky, with a round face and thinning hair. What was on trial now was memory itself. And he gave me final absolution, she said. He said he could hypnotize me and help me.. Death. Later in the hearing, psychotherapists testified that Tracy and Jennifer were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from their alleged abuse by Maskell. Netflix released a seven-part series delving into those allegations in May. (Baltimore magazines efforts to contact Lisa have been unsuccessful, though Tracys attorneys say Lisa corroborates their clients account.). While much of the abuse allegations revolve around Maskell, Magnus is mentioned in a couple of horrifying allegations himself. Many of those interviewed remember Maskell for his imperious, manipulative or lewd behavior. I guess people figure its like a death. He pauses to catch his breath and dry his eyes. Mandatory celibacy allows the Church tight control over its priests, who have no dividing loyalties to wives and offspring and thus require minimal salaries, they write. Save to an Ancestry Tree, a virtual cemetery, your clipboard for pasting or Print. "She confronted him and she lost her life for it," says Teresa Lancaster. He was ordained as Petite, blonde, with doe-brown eyes and a hawk nose, at 41 Tracy recently graduated from community college with honors and is pursuing a bachelors degree. Maskell died in 2001, but just prior to the premiere, the Baltimore County police department announced that they'd exhumed the priest's grave to compare his DNA evidence with the little remaining evidence in Cesnik's cold case. Still other Maskell critics have emerged, with more than a dozen of them telling Baltimore magazine in recent months that the public allegations of sexual misbehavior fit a pattern. / CBS Baltimore. You can customize the cemeteries you volunteer for by selecting or deselecting below. Collins. According to Heim, Maskell liked having the authority to say: This is right; thats wrong.. Rev Anthony Joseph Maskell. A. Joseph Maskell . While Father Joseph Maskell is the priest who is discussed the most in The Keepers, there were many others accused of sexual abuse at Keough High School. Father Joseph Maskell grew up in northeast Baltimore and after graduating from Calvert Hall College, he went on to train at a nearby Seminary. In February 1995, Maskells priestly duties were permanently revoked. When such a priest breaks with his vow of celibacy, the authors add, he might seek involvement with his emotional peers teenagers. Some men can be drawn to the mantle of celibacy in the hope that it will shield them from disturbing elements of their sexuality, and are disappointed when it does not. Father Richard Woy and attorney Thomas Dame represented the archdiocese. As far as the authors are concerned, this power play endures. During Jennifers cross-examination, a defense lawyer pointed-out that Jennifer could not recall any teachers from Keough who had not abused her. They for whatever reason, chose not to prosecute. She cried. This flower has been reported and will not be visible while under review. Judge Caplan, after listening to the experts on both sides, did not believe there was sufficient scientific foundation to support the contention that Jennifer and Tracy had lost and then somehow recovered their memories of abuse. The Nazi doctors killed, but, by their lights, did not murder. Ann*, who doesnt wish to be named because I still have a fear of the man, says Maskell invited her on a boat ride with some other girls. Yeah, her daughter said numbly as she drove. She recalled that he had encouraged the children of St. Clement to come to him with their deepest problems, and that shed given him her first confession, around age 10. In 2001, Maskell died from the effects of a stroke at St. Josephs Hospital, according to Inside Baltimore. He was 62. 4. Baltimore County Police Announced This Week That Maskells DNA Does Not Match Evidence From the Crime Scene A study by the medical journal BMC Public Health says the average age of a victim reporting sexual abuse is 52. Follow @CBSBaltimore on Twitter and like WJZ-TV | CBS Baltimore on Facebook, First published on June 6, 2017 / 9:46 AM. She claims the two priests instructed her to perform oral sex on them because the Holy Spirit was coming through them.It was like the Eucharist. She saw Maskell for counseling sessions during which he was praying that I would stop being bad.. Her parents were upset at finding drug paraphernaIia in her purse, and Tracy hoped the priest would talk with them. WebA woman received acknowledgment of crimes and financial assistance for counseling from the archdiocese in 11/2016 due to her claims of rape by Magnus and another priest, Rev. Friends from his teen years cant recall Maskell ever expressing a libido. Are you sure that you want to report this flower to administrators as offensive or abusive? When Maskells friend Albert Griffith called to say he was depressed and thinking of blowing my brains out, Maskell drove to Severna Park within 15 minutes. Now, more than 40 years later, victims are coming forward. Copyright 2023 NPR. Try again later. Joseph Maskells nightmare might go away. Certainly many cases of sexual abuse by priests are committed by certifiable pedophiles acting out an unchecked craving. The late Father Joseph Maskell, one of the accused priests, is an important character in the Netflix series, leading many to wonder: how did Father Maskell Die? Oops, we were unable to send the email. He spit in my hand. He denied ever abusing anybody, and, according to a family member, even offered to take a lie detector test. 2023 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Could the recently recovered memory of a long-forgotten offense become grounds for a proper lawsuit? More than 500 priests have since been accused, prompting legal actions that have drained Catholic coffers of up to $500 million. Are you sure that you want to delete this memorial? Up Bill didnt have one, but Maskell did, back in the rectory. 7 May 2001 (aged 62) Timonium, Baltimore County, Maryland, Romper reached out to the Baltimore Archdiocese for a statement regarding the accusations against Father Maskell and his potential involvement in Cesnik's death. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Father Maskell was a counselor and chaplain at Archbishop Keough from 1967 to 1975. In 1993, she says, she recalled that Maskell allegedly hypnotized her: He would use a certain phrase and everything would just stop. The phrase, she says, was, I only want whats best for you, just whats best for you. She says he told her that before divulging a certain incident to anyone, I was to kill myself.. [Jennifer], is it the priests? Jennifer indicated that it was. Now lets talk about it. It lay in an open, barren place, next to a dumpster. Baltimore County Police revealed only to WJZ that they've dug up the body of a powerful priest, Father Joseph Maskell, to get his DNA. I just ask the questions, Dantes replied, his back near the rear wall of the courtroom. If his developmental years were any indication, Maskell displayed little outward interest in any sexual life at all. To the victims of sexually abusive priests, mere explanations such as craving disorder or narcissism or doubling surely provide thin solace indeed, and a wholly inadequate foundation upon which to repair ones spirituality. It would have been helpful.. The upcoming Netflix original true crime documentary series The Keepers depicts the ongoing investigation into the unsolved murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik, a former teaching nun at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, Maryland. According to a lawyer representing Mroz and according to the Keepers, the total number of Maskell victims could be more than 40. He raped me. As she left the stand, Dantes gave her a supportive hug. Her next alleged memory came to her in early March 1994, as she was lying in bed at night. A retired Catholic priest, Sipe is the author of A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy and the just-published Sex, Priests and Power. But when Jennifer returned in the fall, Cesnik had changed jobs. I remember kicking somebody in the mouth. Jean Wehner, who was one of the anonymous victims who initially sued the church, said in the series she too began to recover her memory from high school, when she would go see her school counselor, Maskell. Are other people remembering things like this? she asked the attorney. What do you want me to do? he asked. She remembered pain and bleeding. I wonder why I didnt say something earlier, Nelson now said on the car ride home, crying quietly. Maskell, who died in 2001, and the cold case surrounding Cesnik's murder are the subject of The Keepers, a seven-part documentary series released by Netflix last month. The priest then massaged her breasts and asked if her boyfriend touched her similarly, she claims. For six hours, she says, he interrogated her. This first week in May, Caplan was holding a preliminary hearing to consider whether so-called recovered memories constituted justifiable exception to the states three-year statute of limitations in civil suits. The priest advised her to stay away from Maskell and shut the door in her face, she says. The church community is portrayed as insular, with its members and leaders interwoven into one anothers lives and families. At the pronouncement, courtroom 201 became very still. (Toward that end, he says, todays seminarians undergo criminal background checks and a battery of tests designed to ferret out character flaws, though no test is completely reliable for detecting a predisposition to sexual abuse.). Its brainwashing, in a way.". Escorted back to Holy Cross, his parish in South Baltimore, Maskell was given just hours to pack a bag and leave the rectory. For NPR News, I'm Scott Maucione in Baltimore. In the comfortable home he shares with his wife, psychiatrist Marianne Benkert, Sipe recalls one seminarians experience. None of the defendantsMaskell, the archdiocese, Tracys gynecologist, or the School Sisters of Notre Dame who operated Keoughwere present except for a quarter of charcoal-suited attorneys. One was a gruff militarist who barked out commands in the hallway and might search a girls locker for drugs or even cut open the hem of her skirt if he believed she was showing too much thigh. I could tell by the arch of his back that he was personally feeling the suffering that was in front of him, remembers Chaplain Robert K. Shaffer. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Or even, for therapeutic or other reasons, he might need to recreate that sinas though his priestly presence would somehow transform the act. Translation on Find a Grave is an ongoing project. SCOTT MAUCIONE, BYLINE: Jean Hargedon Wehner was just a teenager when Father Joseph Maskell allegedly abused her at a Baltimore high school in the 1960s. As manager of this memorial you can add or update the memorial using the Edit button below. This browser does not support getting your location. As she tried to figure out what the object might have been, her breathing became heavy and panicked. According to Huffington Post's 2015 feature on Cesnik's murder, Maskell was the chaplain of Archbishop Keough High School at the time when 26-year-old Cesnik taught English and drama there. He was interviewed once. As an adult, recalls Bill Heim, Maskell admitted that, when he was about 10, hed had a crush on a pretty neighborhood girl. This memorial has been copied to your clipboard. MAUCIONE: After a four-year investigation, a judge has ordered that a redacted version of a 456-page report on the archdiocese can be released to the public. She had been having additional revelations about Maskell. In recent years, the mutability of memory and the related legal implications have ignited tremendous controversy among researchers and the public. Shed long left the Baltimore area, was married at 24 years old, and had sons before settling in Florida. Please enter your email address and we will send you an email with a reset password code. Now a 38-year-old mother of two, the Baltimore woman had only recently remembered these alleged abuses, and contacted the archdiocese in late June in search of an apology and some spiritual help. She requested a meeting with one of the diocesan representatives without lawyers present and was told no. Over a three-year period, she says, she and Maskell had vaginal intercourse four times, including once during which he called her a whore. A fastidiously clean kid, a teenaged Maskell one year spent so much time immersed in his bathtub ritual, Heim recalls, that his father announced his displeasure over it. He changed the subject, but after he lapsed into a description of sights hed seen on lovers lane, Ann says she asked to be taken home. Cesnik, however, met a different fate, and was found murdered in 1969. He said that I wouldnt have gotten into Keough unless hed pulled strings. I told her I had a hard time with my studies and didnt like Keough a lot, Jennifer says. To view a photo in more detail or edit captions for photos you added, click the photo to open the photo viewer. Maskell knew Jennifer had not let the matter rest, but he clung to the hope that his vocation would endure. And does the priesthoods celibate nature attract men who are earnestly fleeing their urges, only to leave them ill equipped in moments of temptation? He used to say with a smile, Were sacristans. Maryland's Attorney General will soon release results of an investigation of abuse by 150 priests over eighty years. I found out more things on a sexual basis from my sibling than I could have from my parents.". At the plaintiffs table, Phil Dantes, sporting a mustache-in-progress, was accompanied by Maggio and Wallace. On another occasion, she claims, he held an unloaded gun to her head and pulled the trigger, allegedly warning that her policeman father, if he ever learned what was going on, would surely do the same thing with a loaded gun. Chronicling one of the most infamous such cases, Lawrence Wright, in his gripping 1994 book Remembering Satan, goes so far as to argue that a Washington state policeman remembered abusing his daughters in a series of bizarre cult rituals only because overzealous interrogators convinced him of it. Do you believe those girls trying to accuse Father Maskell of such outrageous behavior? one of them said. [My parents] considered them our counselors and everything else. MAUCIONE: Many states, including Maryland, are using the investigations to rethink laws on how long after abuse victims can file lawsuits against their abusers or the organizations harboring them. Try to stay away from him.". I always wondered if he was going to revolt at some point, Heim says. Now, there was Brother [David*] also?. Years later, after her mother died in early 1993, Tracy claims she had several new memories about Maskell, in which the priest had not merely observed her gynecological exams and treatments, but had allegedly helped administer them. 0 cemeteries found in Randallstown, Baltimore County, Maryland, USA. The group fell silent. And he said, if your father ever finds out you've been whoring around, he'll do this, but he'll keep bullets in it. Later, during the car ride home. Surprisingly, however, it was Maskells name under a nearby photo that caused in her an ugly stir., In the following months, Jennifer waded into a stream of increasingly chilling convictions. He told me my problem was that I was frigid, she claims. According to the series, not a good guy, that's who. It was chilling, Mroz told Oxygen.com, recounting her allegations that she was one of the victims of school counselor and chaplain Father A. Joseph Maskell, but not to the extent of some of the other students. JENNIFER WORTHAM: We need significant reform, and we can have uniform federal laws to protect children everywhere, because what applies to the Catholic Church also applies to other not-for-profit organizations. From here on out, there will be several spoilers for The Keepers, so if youre still planning on watching the series, here is your warning. Sipe has interviewed or reviewed the histories of more than 2,000 Catholic priests. She stayed away from the priest, but about a year later, she discovered to her chagrin that Maskell was sitting opposite her in a confessional. Word of the Maskell lawsuit quickly became a hot topic in the Catholic community, and it even prompted some tongue-clucking one afternoon among four middle-aged women at a parish crab feast. Within the past decade, more than 12 area priests have been publicly implicated in the sexual abuse of minors. There was an error deleting this problem. Word of this filtered back to Maskell, who called Bill into the rectory, several days before graduation, Bill says. You may not upload any more photos to this memorial, This photo was not uploaded because this memorial already has 20 photos, This photo was not uploaded because you have already uploaded 5 photos to this memorial, This photo was not uploaded because this memorial already has 30 photos, This photo was not uploaded because you have already uploaded 15 photos to this memorial. Previously sponsored memorials or famous memorials will not have this option. Thanks for your help! The Archdiocese has not engaged in any mediation or entered into any settlement agreement with Ms. Mroz and/or her attorney, Ms. Suder, regarding this allegation," Caine told Oxygen.com. She said he showed her the dead body of a teacher, Sister Cathy Cesnik (pictured), whod gone missing and threatened her with the same fate if she ever told anyone about their sexual encounters. Maskell had insisted that in order for her to be completely cleansed of the incestuous sins with her grandfather, it was necessary for her to disrobe, she says. He served with Father Joseph Maskell, who was the chaplain of the school at this time. English Father A. Joseph Maskell, and possibly others, is accused of. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. It is a leap of faith that this court cannot make, Caplan concluded. The seminary has to help the seminarian realize that he is not a disembodied or angelic being.. And Maskell himself addressed the issue from his new pulpit one Sunday morning, assuring the congregation that he would not run from these untrue allegations. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/179180629/anthony-joseph-maskell. As they drove along the Beltway, she asked him where the other kids were and was told they couldnt make it. HARGEDON WEHNER: I can still hear the click of the trigger. Even given the prospect that Maskell might be unjustly accused, he would have to fight for himself under the new ruleswithout the protective embrace of the institution that had nurtured him for his entire adulthood. Until just a few months ago, Ann Mroz, 63, told Oxygen.com she had no idea she was one of those survivors. Lifton coins the term doubling for the mechanism through which a person, especially one of elevated moral standing, is able to reconcile his misdeeds with his conscience by creating an additional perspective. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. In the 1990s, Jean Wehner came forward and alleged that Father Maskell had sexually abused her and allowed other men to do the same. ", Rolling Stone reports that Magnus was the Director of Religious Studies at Keough Catholic High School throughout the late '60s and '70s. The church has also paid an additional $97,000 in counseling services. Former students and abuse victims told HuffPost that they'd confided in Cesnik about the rampant abuse they were allegedly experiencing prior to her death and that the beloved teacher had intervened on their behalf. Research assistance provided by Baltimore intern Wil Hylton. That was her last confession for 20 years. With the exception of the cape, everything Cruz brought up had been reported to Wallace by someone else. Baltimore, Baltimore City, Maryland, USA.