MARYLAND
The Catholic Spirit
Catholic News Service | Chris Gunty | May 24, 2017
As Netflix prepared to release a seven-part documentary about the unsolved 1969 murder of a Baltimore nun, officials of the Archdiocese of Baltimore reaffirmed that the Church did not attempt to interfere in the investigation of the death of Sister Catherine Cesnik.
Sister Cathy, as she was known, had been a popular teacher at Archbishop Keough High School in the 1960s. She was on a year’s leave of absence from her order, the School Sisters of Notre Dame, to teach in the Baltimore public school system when she was reported missing after she left her apartment Nov. 7, 1969, and never returned, the Catholic Review reported Jan. 9, 1970, after her body was found near a garbage dump.
Related to the investigation into her murder are allegations that she was aware of alleged sexual abuse by a priest at Archbishop Keough High School, where Sister Cathy had taught. That priest, Father A. Joseph Maskell, was not a suspect during the original investigation of the murder in 1969-1970.
The Netflix documentary series, titled “The Keepers,” debuted May 19 and focuses on allegations of sexual abuse in the 1960s and ’70s at Archbishop Keough High by Maskell and of a relationship between that abuse and Sister Cathy’s death. As of press time, neither the Catholic Review nor the Archdiocese of Baltimore had been provided with an advance copy of the series, although advance copies were provided to other media outlets.
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