Archdiocese of Baltimore

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Archdiocese of Baltimore adds 42 accused individuals to child sex abuse list

July 3, 2023 Catholic News Agency 0
A view of Baltimore’s Basilica nestled amid the city’s famed row houses / Public domain

Boston, Mass., Jul 3, 2023 / 14:35 pm (CNA).

The Archdiocese of Baltimore on June 30 added 42 names to its list of individuals accused of child sexual abuse.

The addition of the names to the “List of Priests and Brothers Accused of Child Sexual Abuse,” first published in 2002, comes following Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown’s April report on child sexual abuse in the archdiocese dating back to the 1940s. 

The attorney general’s report called the scope of the abuse “astonishing,” noting that more than 600 children were discovered to have been abused by 156 individuals listed in the report, while adding that “the number is likely far higher.”

The 42 names that were added to the archdiocese’s list consist of 39 individuals who were included in the attorney general’s report; the three other individuals added weren’t named in the report. 

One of the three named is Father Phillip Linden, a Josephite priest who is no longer in active ministry and was named in an allegation relating to his times at St. Francis Xavier Church in East Baltimore in the 1970s.

A Conventual Franciscan, Father Michael Miller, who is suspended from public ministry and pled guilty to child pornography charges in 2013, is also one of the three named.

Lastly, a retired archdiocesan priest who no longer has faculties, Joseph O’Meara, who was accused of “inappropriate touching of a minor” in the 1980s and 1990s, and committing a “boundary violation” with a different minor around the same time, was the third who was named. More can be read about all three here.

As far as the other 39 individuals in the attorney general’s report who were added to the list, at least 33 of them are deceased. The 39 individuals can be read about toward the bottom of the archdiocese’s list of accused here.

According to the archdiocese, the majority of the 39 individuals were not previously included in the list for one of three reasons: the alleged perpetrator is not a priest or brother, never had an assignment within the archdiocese, or was first accused after he died and “is the subject of a single, uncorroborated allegation,” the archdiocese said.

The archdiocese encourages anyone with knowledge of child sexual abuse to contact law enforcement, and anyone with knowledge of sexual abuse by clergy or diocesan personnel to contact the archdiocesan victim’s assistance line at 1-866-417-7469 or the Archdiocesan Office of Child and Youth Protection at 410-547-5348.

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Church commission investigates Baltimore Archdiocese role in slavery

May 12, 2023 Catholic News Agency 3
A view of Baltimore’s basilica nestled amid the city’s famed row houses. / Public domain

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 12, 2023 / 14:40 pm (CNA).

A 17-member commission created by the Archdiocese of Baltimore will investigate the roles that bishops, clergy, and other prominent Catholic figures within the archdiocese played in American slavery.

The commission, which is still in its early stages, includes academics, archivists, and other researchers who are poring through old documents for information on the subject. The commission first met in March and hopes to unveil some of its findings to the public within the fall of this year. 

“It’s striking that … Catholics, clergy and lay, are people of their times and accepted the institution of slavery as just part of life in America,” Bishop Bruce Lewandowski, an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese, told CNA. “It’s very sad to say that.”

Lewandowski said the commission is engaging in “significant research” at the moment and said the goal is to eventually make the history known to the public. Although the means by which they will unveil the information are yet to be decided, he said it could be through articles, presentations, a web page online, or something in document form.

The archdiocese will also use the material for education within churches and schools.

“[We plan to] use it, for example, at the parish level, in Catholic schools, [in the] seminary, [in] education [and] formation so the history is known,” Lewandowski said.

In addition to education, Lewandowski added that the archdiocese intends to “prayerfully reflect” on the information, and the commission will provide recommendations on “atonement and reparations” for the role of the archdiocese in slavery. 

“This is part of an ongoing process … of coming to terms with racism in the present by looking deeply in the past,” Lewandowski said. 

“We also want to engage the community … [and] evaluate the efficacy of our approaches to systemic racism in the archdiocese,” Lewandowski continued.

The idea for a commission sprang from a working group that developed into a permanent structure in the archdiocese called the Racial Justice Coordinating Council. The group, which interviewed nearly 80 people about their experiences with racism within the archdiocese, provided recommendations on racial justice. At a later date, the council requested a serious study into the archdiocese’s participation in slavery. 

“That working group came up with a significant number of recommendations for the archbishop to implement,” Lewandowski said. “And those fell into different categories: education, clergy and seminary formation, the Catholic Center and its internal workings. So, a number of different recommendations.”

Lewandowski added that the participation in slavery is part of the history of the archdiocese, and “we need to continually address it.”

“This is just part of the next phase,” the bishop said.

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Baltimore seals documents related to clerical sexual abuse report

December 6, 2022 Catholic News Agency 1
A view of Baltimore’s Basilica nestled amid the city’s famed row houses / Public domain

St. Louis, Mo., Dec 6, 2022 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

A judge in Baltimore this week ordered all proceedings, filings, and communications related to the release of a major attorney general’s report on clerical sexual abuse to be made confidential. 

Judge Anthony Vittoria of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City issued a confidentiality ruling Dec. 2 in response to a request from an anonymous group of people named in the report but who were not accused of abuse, the Baltimore Sun reported.

At issue is a 456-page report compiled by the office of Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, consisting of information given by the Archdiocese of Baltimore along with information gathered from interviews that claims to identify more than 600 victims of clerical abuse in the archdiocese dating back eight decades. It is currently unclear whether the report will lead to any new criminal charges.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore, which is paying the legal fees for the anonymous group of individuals, said it “does not and will not oppose the report’s release.”

“We stated this fact last week, when we also pledged to support the rights of some people who are mentioned in the report but not accused of abuse — and were not given the ability to respond to the attorney general during the investigation,” Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore said in a Dec. 2 statement.

“Now they deserve to be heard by the court, and we will pay their legal fees to ensure they are heard. I find it necessary to clarify this fact, which we openly stated after Attorney General Frosh publicly released his motion requesting permission from the court to release his office’s report. This does not mean the archdiocese will in any way seek to keep the report from being made public, as some have suggested.”

In a 35-page legal motion dated Nov. 17, Frosh had asked permission from a judge to release the documents provided by the archdiocese, which were given in response to a January 2019 subpoena from a grand jury. Vittoria’s ruling retroactively seals all previous filings in the matter, including that motion to disclose the report, the Sun reported. 

Going forward, the legal processes of releasing the full report will not be disclosed to the public because of the confidentiality order. Should the full report be released, it will likely be redacted. 

Lori apologized to victims of abuse in a November letter and reiterated the archdiocese’s current zero-tolerance policy for sexual abuse.

“Upon reading today’s motion, we feel renewed shame, deep remorse, and heartfelt sympathy, most especially to those who suffered from the actions of representatives of the very Church entrusted with their spiritual and physical well-being,” Lori said in a Nov. 17 statement.

“The information contained in the motion will no doubt be a source of renewed pain for many, most especially those harmed by representatives of the Church, for the lay faithful of our archdiocese, as well as for many good priests, deacons, and religious,” Lori said.

“Ever-aware of the pain endured by survivors of child sexual abuse, I once again offer my sincere apologies to the victim-survivors who were harmed by a minister of the Church and who were harmed by those who failed to protect them, who failed to respond to them with care and compassion and who failed to hold abusers accountable for their sinful and criminal behavior,” Lori added.

Frosh says the report names 115 priests who were prosecuted for sexual abuse and/or identified publicly by the archdiocese as having been “credibly accused” of sexual abuse. It also includes an additional 43 priests — 30 of whom are deceased, and the identities of the rest redacted — accused of sexual abuse “but not identified publicly by the archdiocese,” for a total of 158 names.

The archdiocese’s online list of credibly accused clergy includes 152 names, including many priests from other dioceses or religious orders and 17 religious brothers who served in or had a connection to the archdiocese, the Catholic Review reported. The list was last updated in June.

Addressing the apparent discrepancy between the number of priests named in the attorney general’s report and the number of credibly accused priests listed by the archdiocese, Lori said that the archdiocesan list does not include the names of priests or brothers who died before a single accusation of child abuse was received, unless the allegation could be corroborated by a third party or unless a second allegation was made against the same deceased cleric.

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Why Baltimore? Here’s the reason U.S. bishops meet there every year

November 15, 2022 Catholic News Agency 5
A view of Baltimore’s Basilica nestled amid the city’s famed row houses / Public domain

St. Louis, Mo., Nov 15, 2022 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The bishops of the United States are meeting this week for their fall assembly in Baltimore. They’re gathering to elect a new president and discuss issues facing the Church such as the Ukraine war and the Synod on Synodality, among other things. 

In the early days of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in the early 2000s, the bishops held their fall meeting in Washington D.C. — a location that makes a lot of sense, given Washington’s status as the nation’s capital, as well as the city where the USCCB is headquartered. 

But since 2006, the bishops’ fall assembly has been held in nearby Baltimore. 

But what’s so special about Baltimore? For American Catholics, quite a lot.

For starters, Baltimore was the first diocese in the United States, having been established as such in 1789 and elevated to an archdiocese in 1808. Before its establishment, Catholics in the young United States were under the jurisdiction of the Apostolic Vicariate of the London District in England. 

Maryland, at the time, was the most Catholic of the 13 colonies, having been founded by Catholic colonists wishing to create a society where they could practice their faith. The territory of the Diocese of Baltimore originally included the entire fledgling country. 

John Carroll was chosen as Baltimore’s first bishop, and thus the de facto leader of Catholics in the U.S. A cousin of Charles Carroll — the sole Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence — Carroll’s tenure as bishop led to many Catholic firsts. In 1791 he founded the first seminary in the country, and he ordained the first priest in the U.S. in 1793. Carroll laid the cornerstone for the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Baltimore’s present co-cathedral, in 1806. In 1809, the future St. Elizabeth Ann Seton arrived in Baltimore and started the country’s Catholic school system. 

Though several other dioceses in important cities such as New York, Boston, and Bardstown (now Louisville) would be established after 1808, Baltimore would remain the only archdiocese in the country until 1846. The Archdiocese of Washington was not created until the 20th century. 

In 1858, the Vatican issued a decree granting the right of precedence in the United States to the Archbishop of Baltimore. This means that the Archbishop of Baltimore takes precedence over all other American archbishops — cardinals excluded — in councils, gatherings, and meetings of the hierarchy regardless of seniority, the archdiocese explains. 

In addition to being “first,” Baltimore has historically played an important role in hosting councils and meetings in the U.S. According to the archdiocese, the first Baltimore synod was held in 1791 when 22 priests met with Bishop Carroll to draw up guidelines for the practice of the faith by the clergy and laity, and later synods took on a national character since the diocese was the only one in the country. Most notably, plenary councils of all the country’s bishops were held in Baltimore in 1852, 1866, and 1884. One enduring effect of the last plenary council was setting in motion the process to create the Baltimore Catechism, which was the primary teaching document in U.S. Catholic schools for nearly a century. 

According to the archdiocese, Baltimore today “enjoys a position of importance in the American Church as a leading center of ecumenical, social and civic progress, along with being one of the prime locations for priestly formation in the United States.”

Given all this history in Baltimore, it’s not too surprising that the bishops’ annual fall assembly was moved to Baltimore in 2006. 

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