old cases which may have the same perpetrator, and which have commonalities of location and who the victims knew, including Father A. Joseph Maskell.

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Class of 1970

Archbishop Keough Administration

I knew her as Sister Joanita

Me and my best friend

In a sense, it was the perfect storm of evil intention and opportunity. The man was Chaplain at an all-girls Catholic high school, for a time the only male in the administration or faculty, the lord over a group of nuns from the School Sisters of Notre Dame, led by the soft-spoken Sister Mary Virginia.As a student, I knew nothing about the adults in charge of my days. Like a perfect Freudian analyst, each remained a blank canvas upon which I could project my own thoughts. For example, I imagined that Sister Mary Virginia came from a family of some prominence with social and financial standing in their community. She had a rarefied air, like she stepped over or around the more tawdry elements of her job.I don't remember ever having a one-on-one conversation with Vice Principal Sister Nancy Cavey, much to my relief as I projected upon her a rather ruthless, militaristic persona. I imagined that she came from a place where people learned that life was unfair, that resources were limited, and that if you had to step on someone else to get ahead...so be it. If Keough High School had ever instituted a Hunger Games, she would have organized it.Sister Judith, on the other hand, I spoke to on far too many occasions in her role as Dean of Students (i.e. Dean of Discipline). It was her job to ream out wayward students. I was just irritatingly rebellious enough to come to her attention. The critical difference between her and Sister Nancy was that Sister Judith didn't really seem to relish inflicting pain. Sister Judith seemed, for lack of a better description,Two of the administrators on the 1970yearbook page don't ring a bell with me at all. Then there was the Chaplain (lower middle), Father A. Joseph Maskell. Did I sense that he was evil? Probably not, since evil and priest were a combination not yet familiar to me.I avoided him like the proverbial plague, but that might be simply because I had arrived in high school with a keen mistrust of all authority figures already in place, although my early nemeses were mostly nuns. If I heard any whispers about him, they were faint. I didn't need much urging to stay out of his confessional.Eventually defrocked, albeit decades and decades after he abused multiple young girls, my sole interactions with Father Maskell's office were acts of minor pranking of which I should now, as an adult, be ashamed, but of which I am instead absurdly proud. Then again, he has shown himself to be a rapist and, most probably, a murderer.In one sense, Sister Catherine Cesnick disappeared for me the summer before my senior year of high school when she did not return to teach at Keough. She and another young sister had moved out of the convent into an apartment and were teaching at a public school. We weren't close. In fact, I kinda didn't like her, but then again I had that whole authority figure issue.When she disappeared in November of 1969, it was publicly blamed on her stopping to shop at the Edmondson Village Shopping Center.That this looks now to be a lie is only the first sin, although a grave one. Edmondson Village had been the site of a shady real estate practice called blockbusting -- a way to stimulate white flight and make a buck by buying low from the white population and then selling high to the incoming black population. Falsely blaming Sister Cathy's disappearance on the Edmondson Village Shopping Center was a variation on the-strange-black-guy-did-it and capitalized on fears stoked during the riots that had taken place the previous Spring following Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination.The mysterious black guy didn't do it, of course. It now appears that Father Maskell did. How did he get away with it? That's where evil really had a field day. You see, Maskell had a part-time gig as a police chaplain. Let me spell it out: Rumor back in the day was to avoid going to confession with Maskell as he somehow violated the oath of the confessional. Hints were that he used blackmail. I now believe that he did use his position to identify naive and devout girls who might be more vulnerable to his abuse.Now add to this that he used his position as chaplain to the police to once again corrupt the sacraments -- this time in order to identify those police officers whose morals aligned with his own rotting soul. A group of unrepentant enforcers, if you will, who raped at his direction. You can read more of the details in Inside Baltimore. I wasn't there. Isn't that what people often say when faced with so-called "he said/she said" situations? I was there in the building. I had the faintest inkling that something was not kosher about the chaplain. I didn't know the truth.Sister Cathy knew the truth, because she was told. She promised that she would do something about it. Shortly after this conversation, she disappeared. Two women who were girls at my school during the years I was there have come forward and told police, told a reporter, told a court, told us all that they were. 'This is what will happen to you if you tell.'Maskell was defrocked, eventually. He is now dead. If there is a hell, he's stoking the fires. His law enforcement accomplices have yet to be identified, although some of their colleagues are willing to anonymously speak the truth. (See the link above.)I believe my fellow students. I believe the anonymous police officials. I believe the decision by the Catholic Church to finally defrock him. I wish I knew who knew, how much they knew, and when. I probably never will.For what little it is worth, I want to go on record to my former classmates and say, I believe you. I stand beside you. I hope someday you feel justice, but that hope is faint because justice is elusive and often bows to power. It is difficult to name two more powerful organizations in Baltimore than the Catholic Church and the Baltimore Police Department. Solidarity can have power, too. It is power of a different, more spiritual, force, but it is real. I join my power with yours. Heal, my Keoughites. Speak your truth with healing. Amen.