BALTIMORE — When the Rev. John Mike was an associate pastor at St. Louis Roman Catholic Church four decades ago, he left an impression with his seemingly boundless energy, his outgoing personality and his ability to connect with young people.
But as parishioners gathered Thursday at the Clarksville church for a prayer service, a day after the Maryland Attorney General’s Office released a report on sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, some struggled to fit what they once believed about the Catholic Church with the horrors the document revealed.
Mike is one of four men associated with St. Louis who the document named as abusers. The figure makes the Howard County parish one of a handful of Catholic institutions home to a large number of staff who abused minors over an 80-year span.
