What we know about Fr Joseph Maskell’s time in Ireland

IRELAND
Buzz

BY Seán Fahey
June 06, 2017

If like us, you’ve spent a large portion of the last week binge-watching Netflix’s latest docu-series The Keepers, you probably have a big question on your mind – What did Joseph Maskell do during his time in Ireland?

The Keepers focuses on the death of a nun, Sister Catherine Cesnik, and the connection between her murder and a string of alleged abuses in the Catholic Church.

In particular, the series focuses on the alleged abuses by Fr Joseph Maskell, who was a counsellor at Archbishop Keough High School, an all-girls High School in Baltimore, Maryland, from 1967 to 1975.

From here on out, there will be several spoilers for The Keepers, so if you’re still planning on watching the series, here is your warning.

Despite Catherine Cesnik going missing in Novemeber 1969, and her body being found in January of 1970, accusations against Fr Joseph only truly began to form in 1994, when ‘Jane Doe’, later revealed to be Jean Wehner, came forward saying she had recovered some repressed memories of her time at Keough.

Out of these memories, Wehner remembered being raped and abused by Fr Joseph Maskell and other men he had brought in to their counselling sessions, as well as being brought to see the body of Catherine Cesnik.

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