BALTIMORE (MD)
The Baltimore Banner [Baltimore MD]
April 8, 2023
By Kristen Griffith and Hallie Miller
[This article also includes a database that is searchable and sortable by abuser name, assignment, start and stop years at an assignment, and page of the report.]
The names of priests, deacons, church leaders and the abuses they were accused of might have looked familiar to those scouring through the long-awaited report of child sex abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. But the 456 pages also reveal a few people and details the public may not have been aware of.
The report included 32 names that the church has not included on its credibly accused list, a collection of files on priests who committed sexual abuse in Baltimore that were described as the “bad boy” files, and an instance in which the Archdiocese of Washington took in a Baltimore priest despite knowing he was accused of abuse.
Archdiocese of Washington
On the day the investigation report was released, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown noted that his office previously launched investigations into the Archdiocese of Washington and Diocese of Wilmington, and he described those investigations as ongoing.
“We have issued subpoenas. We have been looking into this matter. And we will continue to do so,” Brown said.
The specifics of Brown’s investigation are not yet known, but Wednesday’s report does include the case of James Lannon, who was accused in 2002 of abusing a 9- or 10-year old student at St. Rose of Lima School in Baltimore in the mid-1930s. According to the alleged victim, Lannon drove her to a deserted farm road and exposed himself to her three separate times.
He was assigned to various parishes within the Archdiocese of Baltimore, then became a priest in the Archdiocese of Washington in the early 1940s.
Although the Archdiocese of Washington stated it first learned of Lannon’s abuse in Baltimore in 1953, an internal document from the Archdiocese of Baltimore stated that the Archdiocese of Washington “acknowledges documented history of sexual impropriety with teenaged boys on [Lannon’s] part.”
The ‘bad boy’ files
There’s a group of six Maryland priests whose records are described as the “bad boy” files by an unidentified person, referred to as “Official B”in the report. That group includesJohn Banko, who was first accused in 1992 of inappropriate touching and sex solicitation of a victim in a movie theater. Ten years later, another allegation emerged by one victim who was described as “learning disabled” at Boys’ Latin High School. The former Boys’ Latin student reported he was fondled, touched and orally raped by Banko for over a decade.
After Banko was sentenced to 18 years in prison for aggravated sexual assault of another victim, an 11-year-old altar boy at St. Edward the Confessor in New Jersey in 2003, he was sentenced to 26 additional years three years later for sexually assaulting another boy at the same church in 1994 and 1995.
Also in the “bad boy” files was Mark Haight. In 2002, he was accused of abuse when he attended St. Mary’s Seminary. The alleged victim was 14 at the time and worked as a receptionist.
“Haight took him on a camping trip on Assateague Island and sexually abused him in the tent,” the report stated.
The accuser said there was another seminarian in the tent at the time who did nothing.
Civil suits around the country were filed against Haight about alleged abuse happening outside of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. One suit filed in Boston in 2004 alleged that Haight and another priest sexually abused someone in Colonie, New York, and during trips to Massachusetts. Another suit was filed in 2018 in Vermont, and a suit in New York was settled in 2022 for $750,000.
After a pastor within the Diocese of Albany reported having “uneasy feelings” about Haight’s interactions with young people in 1980, he was sent to a California treatment facility that specializes “psychological and psychosexual” problems for priests.
However, the abuse accusations continued after he was assigned to another New York parish, the report noted. He was accused in 1989 at St. Joseph’s Church in Scotia, New York, and removed from the ministry in 1996 after another allegation. However, the Diocese of Albany did not list him as “credibly accused” until 2018.
New names listed
After Joseph Krach was reported for having “some problems with altar boys” at St. Peter the Apostle Church in Garrett County, he was hospitalized at the Seton Institute in Baltimore in 1968. Notes from a doctor stated that Krach was simply being “overly affectionate with the boys.” The priest didn’t seem to realize that his “interest in boys … was actually a sexual one or at least could result in sexual excitation,” the doctor wrote. The notes stated that hospitalization was recommended “but perhaps not a great deal more.”
Krach was one of the 32 clergymen who have been credibly accused but did not appear on the church’s public list of credibly accused priests.
The report noted that doctors assumed Krach would be reassigned. One doctor said: “To cast him adrift would not be in his interest and would not seem warranted by his overt actions in the sense of being necessary at present to safeguard the general welfare of the Church.”
There is no record of any attempt to identify Krach’s victims, let the parish or the public know, or even restrict his access to children, the report stated.
In a March 12, 1992, letter from an unidentified church “official” to Krach, the official confirmed that Krach still had church authority powers with the archdiocese and could help out with Masses at Stella Maris, a retirement home in Timonium, for the residents. “There was no recommendation about public disclosure,” the report stated. “There is no record of any attempt by the Archdiocese to identify victims.”
Another new name is Father Louis John Affrica, who worked as a teacher at Bishop McNamara High School in Forestville in Prince George’s County, and as deacon and pastor at St. Michael the Archangel in Overlea, Our Lady of Victory in Baltimore and at St. Ann Roman Catholic Church in Hagerstown.
According to the report, allegations against Affrica did not surface until after he had left the ministry, which the church has cited in documents as a reason for not publicizing the allegations. He married in the 1980s and became a licensed clinical social worker.
Another is Father Robert C. Callahan, who was accused of abuse from 1967 to 1974. The victim said he was anally raped and encouraged to drink alcohol with Callahan before Callahan abused him. The victim alleges the abuse took place at his house, Callahan’s house, St. Rita Church rectory in Baltimore, Christ the King Church rectory in Edgemere, Callahan’s car and houseboat, a Glen Burnie parking lot and the victim’s parents’ car.
“There was no way to get away from him,” the victim said.
The victim was convinced someone had to have known of the abuse, given the amount of time he spent at the rectory and at school.
An unidentified person met with the victim and said he had no doubt the young man was telling the truth. The person validated the victim’s concerns about a cover-up and said “that he was correct, the Church made mistakes in the past, but had a more enlightened picture of this disorder now.”
kristen.griffith@thebaltimorebanner.com
hallie.miller@thebaltimorebanner.com