Archdiocese

Anne Arundel County police are investigating sexual abuse allegations by a former student at Monsignor Slade Catholic School in Glen Burnie, officials of the Archdiocese of Baltimore said Wednesday. In a letter posted on the archdiocese website and sent to parents via email Wednesday, Barbara McGraw Edmondson, the superintendent of schools within the archdiocese, said county police searched the school Tuesday afternoon and that those being investigated have been suspended until "a determination is made concerning the veracity of the allegations.

Anne Arundel County police are investigating sexual abuse allegations by a former student at Monsignor Slade Catholic School in Glen Burnie, officials of the Archdiocese of Baltimore said Wednesday. In a letter posted on the archdiocese website and sent to parents via email Wednesday, Barbara McGraw Edmondson, the superintendent of schools within the archdiocese, said county police searched the school Tuesday afternoon and that those being investigated have been suspended until "a determination is made concerning the veracity of the allegations.

A former employee of a Catholic girls school in Catonsville, who says she was fired after an affair with the school's former chaplain, is suing him, the school and the Archdiocese of Baltimore, alleging defamation and other transgressions, according to court documents. In the suit, filed last week in Baltimore City Circuit Court, Ellicott City resident Charyl Breidenstein alleges that the Rev. Timothy Fell, her former parish priest, had sexual contact with her over an approximately 18-month period, ending about June 2005.

It has been nearly three years since my predecessor, Cardinal Edwin O'Brien, and the Blue Ribbon Committee on Catholic Schools released the Strategic Plan for Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Since that time, enrollment declines have been stemmed in many schools; innovative new programs such as our dual language and Montessori initiatives have kept our schools competitive; and systemic changes to the governance of our schools, renewed focus on school leadership - training of principals and development of local school boards, as well as system-wide accreditation - are ensuring Catholic schools remain an excellent value (average annual K-8 cost is approximately $5,000)

The Archdiocese of Baltimore is right to file this lawsuit against the ordinance regulating pregnancy counseling centers ("Church: Clinic signs are unlawful," March 30). I understand Planned Parenthood, which is one of the largest abortion mills in the country, requested then-City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake to sponsor this bill. Why should Planned Parenthood set the standards of what a pregnancy counseling center is? Planned Parenthood was against any provisions in this law that would regulate them.

I was among the 800 or so people who attended the Monday meeting with representatives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore at Cardinal Gibbons School. Like the rest of the Gibbons supporters who were there, I clearly heard Bishop Denis J. Madden say in response to a question about Gibbons going private that "all kinds of options are being considered," just as The Sun reported ("Catholic schools showdown," March 9). After the hearing, I was among a group of alumni speaking with Bishop Madden when he repeated his statement that "all kinds of options are being considered" in response to a more detailed question from a current member of the Cardinal Gibbons board about the possibility of the school going public.

Here's a revealing quote from Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien on the closings of 13 Catholic schools in Baltimore and Baltimore County: "This is my challenge for my tenure here. It's not one that I expected, not one that I would have wanted, but it's not one that I can avoid, and will not avoid." Not one that he expected? Closing schools, including Cardinal Gibbons High, didn't come up in the exit chat with his predecessor? You mean to tell me that, while Cardinal William Keeler showed the new archbishop the restored -- at a conservatively estimated cost of $34 million -- Basilica of the Assumption, he didn't mention the looming financial crisis in the schools of the premier see?

As the parent of a "consolidated" student from Cardinal Gibbons, I can't express my anger and hurt over how cruel a blow this is to the boys from that school. I am frustrated at the callousness of the decision to abandon 300 boys. The archdiocese, putting on its political face, promised these boys options for the upcoming year that aren't really options at all. Of the 10 schools named as "receiver schools," most are either geographically or financially not options. Does the archdiocese feel it has served us well by giving us opportunities to attend schools in Annapolis or Harford County?

There has been so much response to my Sunday column on the Archdiocese of Baltimore's decision to close 13 schools, including Cardinal Gibbons School, I thought I would share some of the more interesting and thoughtful comments with all my other readers today. From Don Gainor: "You have no idea what you are talking about." From Ed Bradley: "Interesting that in an entire commentary on closing parochial grade schools you never even mentioned the reason this has to happen -- the Catholic School System is a huge global education system that was operated with almost free labor (primarily nuns)

To say that I am disappointed to hear that Cardinal Gibbons School is closing is an understatement ("Disbelief, outrage in face of Gibbons' closing," Mar. 4). I am writing you this e-mail because I believe that the true Gibbons spirit and the quality of Catholic men that Gibbons produces are the very essence of what is at stake with Gibbons' closure. I believe that it is a moral wrong to deprive society of the types of men who would receive a Catholic education, specifically from Cardinal Gibbons.

A longtime deacon at a Fullerton church was charged Friday with possessing "numerous files of child pornography," Baltimore County police said. William Steven Albaugh, 67, a deacon at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church on Belair Road, was arrested at his Nottingham home at 7:45 a.m. Police had searched Albaugh's Treadway Court home and said they found images of children on his Verizon Online account and on thumb drives. Police do not believe that children at St. Joseph's were victims.

Archbishop William E. Lori will celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving next week for the papacy of Benedict XVI, the Archdiocese of Baltimore announced Friday. The Mass is planned for 5 p.m. Feb. 23 at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, spokesman Sean Caine said. It will be open to the public; tickets will not be required. Benedict, 85, said this week that he would step down at the end of the month after nearly eight years as spiritual leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics. He became the first pope to resign voluntarily since Clementine V in 1294.

Elizabeth Ann Murphy's response to Vice Chancellor Sean Caine's letter justifying the Archdiocese of Baltimore's response to allegations of child sexual abuse by John Merzbacher was revealing in its account of her own experience as a victim of such abuse ("Merzbacher victim: Archdiocese has much to answer for," Dec. 6). We in the child advocacy community understand the long-term ramifications of this type of abuse. The hurt to the victim doesn't go away, and to justify any institution's reaction that does not fully embrace that concept is shameful.

Regarding Baltimore Archdiocese Vice-Chancellor Sean Caine's recent letter justifying the church's response to allegations of child sexual abuse, I am glad that in 1993 Maryland's attorney general made it clear that all abuse cases should be reported ("Archdiocese acted responsibly," Dec. 2). So much for the Catholic Church being a moral leader. When I returned to the archdiocese in 1993 to again report the abuse I had suffered, it was through Fr. William Mannion. At that point I had been in touch with 17 other victims of John Merzbacher.

I write in response to last Sunday's article, "Catholic officials knew of teacher's abuse, court files indicate" (Nov. 24) and the subsequent editorial regarding the horrific abuse committed by John Merzbacher in the 1970s. Contrary to the article's implication that the former archbishop or others in the central offices of the Archdiocese of Baltimore delayed the reporting of the abuse, the archdiocese first learned of the abuse when a victim - by then an adult - reported it to us in 1988.

My wife grew up in a large Catholic family in Locust Point, and she and her siblings attended Our Lady of Good Counsel School. They have wonderful stories of friends, relatives, co-workers and neighborhood characters, second and third generation descendants of immigrants from Germany, Poland and Ireland, who are the embodiment of American working class families who sacrificed so much to give their children a better life. In this close community, the stories about John Merzbacher and the atrocities he committed on innocent children began surfacing early on ("Calls for reform in cases of abuse," Nov. 27)

It is awkward to say the least for the Archdiocese of Baltimore to refuse to sell closed Catholic school buildings for use as charter schools ("Archdiocese won't sell or least to charter schools," March 17). The Archdiocese "owns" these buildings in only a technical legal sense. Many individual contributions of Catholic parents built these schools — for the education of children. When charter schools propose to use these now empty buildings for the very use for which they were constructed, the Archdiocese ought to jump at the opportunity.

Once again, Dan Rodricks has voiced his hang-up with the Catholic Church with a cheap and inaccurate shot accusing the Archdiocese of Baltimore of "looking petty when it refuses to sell its vacant school buildings to city charter schools" ("Street food and soccer, war and Westboro," March 24). Note he wrote buildings, plural, not the single school building in the news recently. In fact, the Archdiocese announced on March 24 the sale of St. Rose of Lima Catholic School and convent in Brooklyn to The Children's Guild, an operator of two city charter schools.

Last Sunday in Baltimore's St. Vincent de Paul Church, its longtime pastor, the Rev. Richard T. Lawrence, delivered a thoughtful and nuanced argument for support of the Question 6 ballot referendum. This, of course, was news in Roman Catholic circles — an opinion from the pulpit fully at odds with the hierarchy of a church that has devoted much time and money to voter rejection of a Maryland law that allows couples of the same sex to wed. Lawrence is the most eloquent homilist I've ever heard.

Gary Rand II has been named principal of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School in Hampden, the Archdiocese of Baltimore confirmed Tuesday. His predecessor at St. Thomas Aquinas, Sister Marie Rose Gustatus, was principal for 32 years and has been a School Sister of Notre Dame for 50 years. She retired earlier this month. Rand, 37, of Frederick, is already at St. Thomas, where school starts Aug. 27. He previously served as principal of St. Andrew's Catholic School in Silver Spring for one year and as principal of St. Clement Mary Hofbauer School in Rosedale for two years.