MARYLAND
Huffington Post
Sarah Ensor, Contributor
Essayist at write2sarah.com
Note: This post contains details regarding sexual abuse.
In the late Cathy Cesnik’s English class at Archbishop Keough High School, my mother and her friend giggled uncontrollably at the cackling of the Three Witches, or the Wayward Sisters, in the recording of “MacBeth.” Sister Cathy (who at that time went by Sister Joanita) devised a punishment to fit the crime: each time the recording approached the cackling, she lowered the volume on the record player and required the girls to perform the cackling themselves. She was the kind of teacher who created with her students memories that last a lifetime.
Tragically, Cesnik’s life was cut short when she was murdered in 1969, as previously reported in HuffPost’s original story: “Buried in Baltimore: The Mysterious Murder of a Nun Who Knew Too Much.”
Just before Netflix released Ryan White’s stunning seven-part documentary series, “The Keepers,” which details allegations of abuse by priests (and police officers) and the unsolved murders of Cesnik and Joyce Malecki, the Archdiocese of Baltimore began a public relations campaign aimed to protect diocesan coffers, minimize the experiences of the many victims of abuse and the families of slain women, and deflect responsibility for the crimes.
When the late Father Joseph Maskell, then the guidance counselor at Archbishop Keough High School, called my mother, who was 15, to his office for counseling, he used guilt, shame, and hypnosis to abuse her. He told her French kissing was a mortal sin. He plied her for details of her dates with her boyfriend. And when he thought he had properly groomed her, he hypnotized her and assaulted her.
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