BALTIMORE (MD)
The Baltimore Banner [Baltimore MD]
April 30, 2023
By Gemma Hoskins
More than 500 people have contacted Richard Wolf, the investigator for the state Attorney General’s Office, since the report about alleged sexual abuse by clergy and others in the Archdiocese of Baltimore came out two weeks ago.
I asked him if he was exhausted. Without hesitation, he told me no, because this is the first time many have told their story to anybody. So however hard it may be to do his job, it’s harder for them.
Most are new survivors. Many institutions in this state are hoping nobody looks too closely their way — like when you don’t want the teacher to call on you. This applies to the church, law enforcement, the government, schools, a hospital.
But thousands of broken angels are rising up together, a real big band of them. Their strength comes from each other and all of us who honor them, respect them, care for them and love them. Institutional power is mighty, but temporary. Masks are falling off, revealing dishonesty, disrespect, evil and greed. They are afraid of our beautiful angels, who are crowding the sky, the sound from their wings deafening.
Sometimes I think the world and everybody in it is crazy and senseless and are we going to die today in a nuclear surprise. But when I look at the sky and know that those one-wing doves are winning, winning, winning and making us all pay attention to what is true and just, I feel a little less crazy and a little more hopeful that we are changing the world.
So, let’s give it up for the angels among us.
Gemma Hoskins, Baltimore
Gemma Hoskins is a graduate of Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore and is an advocate for survivors of sexual abuse. She was featured in the 2017 Netflix docuseries “The Keepers,” which examines the decades-old murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik and its suspected link to a priest who was Keough’s chaplain.
