There are two types of evil: The direct kind, committed by the person who inflicts pain and suffering, and the indirect kind, committed by the person who sees it and does little or nothing. Maryland’s highest court has declared that, in the case of the monstrous abuses inflicted on children years ago by Catholic clergy, the first form of evil warrants public exposure but the latter does not.
This is a complicated and fascinating legal and moral matter: Is private shame sufficient punishment for those who stood by and did nothing, or should they face public exposure and humiliation?
It sounds like good material for debate clubs and philosophy classes.
But, for the many victims of sexual abuse, this is no academic exercise; it’s a real-life insult to their dogged campaign for a full public accounting of the sins of the Roman Catholic Church.
In a ruling filed April 27, the Maryland Supreme Court said public accountability is not a good enough reason to disclose the names of the never-charged-but-complicit. The court prohibited the identification of at least 17 people who were cited in the state’s long and sprawling investigation but never accused of a crime. Such a disclosure, the court said, would violate Maryland’s long-standing rule on grand jury secrecy, subject those people to public humiliation without a way to vindicate themselves and deter witnesses from coming forth in criminal investigations.
The court’s ruling stops the Office of the Maryland Attorney General from publishing the names of the never-charged: Catholic clergy and non-clergy who did little or nothing while others sexually abused minors in parishes across the state.
The names of the never-charged were redacted from the Attorney General’s 463-page report, released in April 2023. The report listed 156 members of the Catholic clergy and others who had abused more than 600 children over eight decades. The issue of disclosure reached the Maryland Supreme Court after rulings in Baltimore Circuit Court and the Maryland Appellate Court.
The Supreme Court said there has to be a good and particular reason to release secret grand jury testimony — for referral of possible criminality to a federal agency, for instance — but public accountability is not one of them.
Citing opinions from earlier cases, the court said “secrecy is the lifeblood of the grand jury,” and, while the veil of secrecy might be lifted from time to time, “this may be done only discretely and limitedly.”
Also from the ruling: “Many grand jury investigations produce negative information about uncharged individuals that the public might benefit from learning. That commonly present interest is insufficient to constitute a particularized need that may outweigh the continued interest in secrecy . . .”
Allowing disclosure, the court said, “would defeat one of the main purposes of the grand jury process: preventing unindicted persons from being held up to public ridicule.”
I didn’t have “preventing public ridicule” as a reason for grand jury secrecy.
A greater concern would be the chilling effect disclosure of witnesses and testimony might have on the investigative powers of the grand jury: Without secrecy, it would be harder to get the goods on the bad guys.
One more thing: The Supreme Court seemed to suggest that the public has had its fill of the scandal from media reporting and litigation, eliminating the need for further disclosure: “We do not minimize the harm that so many children suffered at the hands of clergy and others within the [Archdiocese of Baltimore]. Nor do we discount the interest of the public in understanding the history of child abuse in AOB and other institutions. Investigative journalism, criminal prosecutions and civil actions have exposed much of what went on within AOB.”
Allow me to step back for a moment to point out a glaring irony in all this devotion to secrecy: The scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church began in secrecy. You could argue that it’s all about secrecy — the secret lives of the priests who abused children and the church leaders who not only covered up their crimes but abetted the abuse by transferring predator priests to other parishes.
One can reasonably ask: Is the secrecy of the grand jury sacrosanct even with a seismic event like the Catholic sex abuse scandal? Isn’t it important to know how the sexual abuse of minors by priests continued for so long? Do those who knew but remained silent deserve blame?
And isn’t there a major difference between truly innocent witnesses and those who could have taken action to stop crimes but failed to do so?
Such a distinction might have been achieved on a case-by-case basis under a common-sense order from the Appellate Court, but the Supreme Court rejected that process, again dismissing public accountability as justification.
So a layer of secrecy remains.
Eight years ago, in a 900-page grand jury report on widespread clergy abuse of thousands of victims, Pennsylvania authorities disclosed the name of William H. Keeler, a former bishop of the Diocese of Harrisburg and, later, cardinal of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The report described Keeler’s inaction after learning that two priests had separately abused numerous girls, including five from one family. (Keeler had one of the abusers moved to a parish in the Baltimore archdiocese.)
The cardinal was not accused of abuse, but, like other Catholic superiors around the country, he had allowed it to continue. So the Pennsylvania Attorney General at the time — Josh Shapiro, now governor of the commonwealth — had no reservations about naming him.
Of course, Keeler had died the year before the report came out; he wasn’t around to defend himself, nor was he able to demand that his name be redacted and spared humiliation in the court of public opinion. And so the victims in Pennsylvania have something their peers in Maryland do not have — a fuller accounting of abuse and the holy men who tried to keep evil a secret.
Dan Rodricks’ columns on local topics appear weekly in Baltimore Fishbowl. His columns on national affairs can be found on Substack. He can be reached via danrodricks.com
Reading this commentary brings to mind the horrible abuse that took place at Archbishop Keough High School. Many girls from my elementary school went there as did one of my sisters. Surely there were people there (possible nuns) who knew of the abuse and never came forward. The church needs to come clean, but with the scourge of clericalism, I just wonder if it’s possible. So many people have been damaged and so many have suffered.