Fr. Robert W. Duerr
Parish priest, longtime teacher and principal of Mount De Sales Academy in Catonsville. Named publicly as accused by the archdiocese on its list 4/24/2019. Report to archdiocese in 2002 of abuse in the early 1950s. Allegation in 2012 of abuse early 1950s-early 1960s. Duerr died in 1982. Included in the 4/5/2023 MD Attorney General’s Report. It notes that a former nun reported in 2002 that when she was working at St. Rita’s 1952-1953, she witnessed Duerr fondling altar boys, who were third graders at the parish school. She said she tried to report the abuse to the Archdiocese six years prior, and was told nothing could be done because Duerr was deceased. In 2012 a woman told the Archdiocese she was sexually abused by Duerr beginning when she was age 7 at St. Rita’s and continuing until she went away to college. She said she was was first raped before her first communion. Further, she told a nun about the abuse, and she believed that another priest at the parish, Fr. Charles Muth, knew about it.
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