BALTIMORE — Time has moved on. Many are gray-haired now, and their abusers long dead or otherwise beyond being prosecuted.
But with Wednesday’s release of the Maryland attorney general’s sweeping report on decades of child sex abuse in the Baltimore archdiocese, these now grown Catholic schoolchildren feel a measure of vindication — however delayed, however incomplete.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said Linda Malat Tiburzi, a Baltimore woman who was among the students raped in the 1970s by their teacher, John Merzbacher, at Catholic Community Middle School in South Baltimore.
“I just want the darkness, the crimes, the heinous things that were done to children to finally come to light,” she said.
The 456-page report shines a harsh light on the physical and sexual violence exacted on children by clergy and other employees of the archdiocese, and how the church covered up the crimes and failed to protect its youngest parishioners.
The report has its limitations, with some believing it should have included churches and schools in the Washington suburbs and on the Eastern Shore, which fall under other archdioceses. And it was released with redactions after a legal battle over what could be publicly divulged.
But the fact that the results of a four-year investigation into child sexual abuse in the archdiocese were reported at all felt like something to celebrate for some.
“This is a victory lap,” said Jean Hargadon Wehner, among those whose abuse while at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore formed the basis of the 2017 Netflix series, “The Keepers.”
She said she felt a range of emotions on Wednesday, from joy at being heard, to anger that abusers like Father A. Joseph Maskell, the school’s chaplain, were able to escape full accountability because of a statute of limitations expiring. That may change, with legislation approved by the Maryland General Assembly, but Maskell died in 2001.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, who took office in January after the report was completed under the administration of his predecessor, Brian Frosh, lauded the survivors “for their courage, their candor of sharing their long, arduous, painful, difficult journey ... at times when they were considered liars, where the weight given to abusers was greater than the credibility given to the abused, yet they endured.”
His office sought to change that, he said. To verify survivors’ claims, the staff went through hundreds of thousands of documents, interviewed witnesses and searched for corroboration, Brown said.
And mostly, he said, they listened to survivors.
“We credit their accounts. We credit their stories,” Brown said. “We enter into the conversation or dialogue believing what they say.”
Brown met with several dozen survivors Wednesday morning in advance of releasing the report, along with advocates such as those with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.
The devastation from priest abuse is vast, said David Lorenz, who heads the SNAP group in Maryland.
“The lives that they’ve wrecked, the lives that they destroyed, take years and years of therapy and hospitalization to restore,” he said.
Buddy Robson, who lives in Prince George’s County, was unable to attend the meeting with Brown but sent him a letter to thank him, and to urge him to continue investigating child sex abuse in the rest of the state.
“Much more work needs to be done to expose all of the evil suffered by all of Maryland’s children and families,” said Robson, who was abused by a priest in the Washington suburbs.
Robson was interviewed twice by the Attorney General’s Office, though the report was limited to the Baltimore archdiocese.
“I feel very strongly that all of Maryland’s children and family survivors need vindication, healing, hope, and closure,” Robson wrote.
Brown said that despite the focus of the report on the Baltimore area, the office hasn’t been “idle” when it comes to the Washington and Wilmington, Delaware, archdioceses, which cover other parts of Maryland.
“Those investigations are ongoing,” he said.
Kurt Rupprecht, who was abused at a parish in the Wilmington diocese, said he looks forward to taking the fight there.
“The damage is done to us. It’s done. It’s never going away.” he said. “Because those of us here have the strength — which is largely by the grace of our family and friends who have supported us and kept us going — we have the responsibility to protect the young, those who are still to come, and reach out to those out there who need some of this strength to make it through.”
But for now, said Rupprecht, speaking at a press conference at the Jenner Law Firm, he is celebrating the release of the Baltimore report.
“I am so relieved and happy for our brothers and sisters here in the Baltimore area,” he said. “It’s a big step in the journey, as it does continue. This is a great day.”
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(Baltimore Sun reporter Lia Russell contributed to this article.)
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