BALTIMORE (MD)
The U.S. Sun [New York NY]
July 13, 2023
By Rachel Dobkin
A survivor of the Baltimore Catholic Church sex ring has spoken out about the similarities between her abuse and that of another alleged victim whose family is now suing the archdiocese.
Francis X Gallagher Jr. came forward as a sex abuse victim in his adulthood after he was allegedly molested by a clergy member when he was a boy.
When Gallagher pushed to have his alleged abuser’s name on its list of priests and seminarians credibly accused of abuse, he was threatened by the archdiocese, a lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese of Baltimore in late June has claimed.
The wrongful death suit was filed by Gallagher’s children, Flannery and Liam.
It claims Gallagher’s alleged abuse and the mishandling of his allegations drove the 62-year-old to die from a fatal overdose in August 2022.
A cause of death was not available at the time his obituary was released, the Union-Bulltein reports.
“I really wish the best for these people suing the church,” another Baltimore Catholic Chruch sex abuse survivor, Teresa Lancaster, exclusively told The U.S. Sun.
Lancaster, now 69, was forced into the church’s “sex ring,” as she calls it while attending Archbishop Keough High School in Maryland during the late 1960s to early 1970s.
“I went to the counselor at Archbishop Keogh to get some advice about some problems at home,” Lancaster said in a previous interview with The U.S. Sun.
Her counselor, Father Joseph Maskell, was a Catholic priest who allegedly sexually abused multiple girls at the high school during this time – but denied any accusations until his death in 2001 and was never criminally charged.
“When I went in there, he closed the door and took all my clothes off, and sat me in his lap within five or 10 minutes,” Lancaster said.
Lancaster said her story was similar to that of Gallagher’s.
Gallagher was allegedly abused while working as a night receptionist at St. Mary’s Seminary at just 14 years old.
He had to work to support his family after the death of his father, Francis X. Gallagher Sr., founder of the law firm Gallagher, Evelius & Jones who is now defending the church in the suit.
St. Mary’s Seminary and University, and St. Sulpice Foundation, the religious order that runs the seminary, are also named as defendants in the Gallagher family lawsuit.
Gallagher’s alleged abuser, Reverend Mark Haight, is now listed on the archdiocese’s compilation of clergy credibly accused of child sexual abuse.
Lancaster spoke on the false perception that kids are safe in the church.
“My parents wanted me to go to Keough because you’re safe, you’re surrounded by the church, you’re safe,” she said.
“And there he was going to a seminary and there would be no other safe place around.”
The archdiocese said that it was “just learning of the pending litigation and cannot offer a response at this time,” in a statement to the Washington Post.
“The Archdiocese offers its deepest sympathies and prayers for the family.”
EXPOSING ABUSE
In early April, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown released a report detailing 156 alleged sex abusers within the Archdiocese of Baltimore, who molested over 600 children for over 60 years.
“The parallel with their story, with the denial, the coverup, and the AG report exposing that the church knew all along is just really a lot to take,” Lancaster said.
The report alleges that Haight molested a 14-year-old boy, who was a night receptionist at St. Mary’s, on a camping trip to Assateague Island.
Haight allegedly abused the boy in front of another seminarian who did not say or do anything, according to the report.
While the boy is not named in the report, Gallagher was the victim, according to the family attorney, the Union-Bulletin reports.
After his death, Gallagher’s children found their father’s exchanges with the archdiocese where he names his alleged abuser and tries to find out whether there were other victims
Gallagher reportedly reached out to Baltimore Auxiliary Bishop William Francis Malooly and associate director of clergy personnel Reverend Patrick Carrion in April 2002 about Haight.
“One of my many regrets is that it took me 28 years to come forward,” Gallagher wrote in the letter obtained by the Washington Post.
“The thought that my silence on this matter could have contributed to others being abused is something that I will have to live with forever.”
According to the wrongful death lawsuit, Malooly and Carrion never replied.
Lancaster said Malooly was also linked to her alleged abuser, Father Maskell, and in his movement from place to place in the archdiocese.
“Malooly he was the one involved in my abuser, Maskell, [he] shuffled him around,” she said.
In a statement, Malooly has previously claimed he was unable to corroborate claims made against Maskell but removed him after multiple allegations were made.
In a previous interview, Lancaster said that church leadership “were told not to ever admit that any of the priests were abusing. Their method was to cover it up and, and enable them.
“It was common for them to move abusive priests from parish to parish and hide it and that was just embedded in the doctrine.”