BALTIMORE — In 1958, a Baltimore County judge wrote a letter to the Baltimore archbishop with praise for “your great Catholic Church,” and a mention of the judge’s “extremely cordial” relationship with clergy.
That letter was in response to one sent three days earlier, in which the archbishop asked the judge to spare one of his priests, Gerald Tragesser, from jail and public shame for his molestation of a 13-year-old girl.
In the coming days, the archbishop, “through the existence of some excellent Catholic laymen,” was able to orchestrate a trial in the judge’s chambers, according to a letter he wrote to the founder of a treatment center for priests. The proceedings hidden from public view, the parties decided Tragesser would be sent to a New Mexico facility for psychological treatment. Tragesser died in 2013.
