Child Sexual Abuse

Dontee D. Stokes, the Baltimore man who shot a priest he says molested him as a teen-ager, testified to a grand jury yesterday in an effort to help indict the suspended clergyman on charges of child sex abuse. An indictment against the Rev. Maurice J. Blackwell could be handed up as early as today after the grand jury hears testimony from a police investigator, according to one source familiar with the proceeding who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Warren A. Brown, who successfully represented Stokes at his attempted-murder trial last year, said Stokes testified for about 40 minutes yesterday, detailing the abuse he says he suffered and answering jurors' questions about inconsistencies in his story.

THE STIGMA and shame of child sexual abuse typically haunt victims through their lives, compromising not only their emotional health but their ability to seek help or fight back. Sadly, by the time some reconcile their pain and try to move on as adults, they discover some avenues for legal redress are blocked: Maryland law says they should have come forward when they were very much younger. Victims and children's advocates have long said Maryland's time limit on bringing a civil claim benefits the abuser instead of helping the abused seek justice.

HOWEVER YOU CHOSE to draw the curtain on 2002 last night, you're probably just thankful it's over. And try as we might to convince you that there was some value to the last 12 months of misery, some morsel of hope to be extracted from the madness, the constraints of honest newspapering prevent any fakery. Last year simply didn't offer many moments to savor. And it gave us plenty of reasons to fret. About our financial security, the trustworthiness of our religious institutions, nuclear brinkmanship, terrorist threats, a suburban sniper, and, most recently, the distinct possibility that scientific exploit might outpace common sense and morality.

Baltimore Archdiocese officials have removed a Roman Catholic priest from a Northeast Baltimore parish after he was recently accused of molesting two boys more than 30 years ago. The Rev. Robert Lentz, 66, who was assigned to St. Dominic Catholic Church in Hamilton, has been accused of sexually abusing two boys in the mid- to late 1960s. Lentz was confronted with the allegations at a meeting with church officials Monday. Both a civil lawyer and a canon lawyer, who is a specialist in church law, accompanied him. Lentz denies the allegations, but he has been suspended from serving as a priest and has been forced to move from the rectory while the archdiocese investigates.

Baltimore Archdiocese officials have removed a Roman Catholic priest from a Northeast Baltimore parish after he was recently accused of molesting two boys more than 30 years ago. The Rev. Robert Lentz, 66, who was assigned to St. Dominic Catholic Church in Hamilton, has been accused of sexually abusing two boys in the mid- to late 1960s. Lentz was confronted with the allegations at a meeting with church officials Monday. Both a civil lawyer and a canon lawyer, who is a specialist in church law, accompanied him. Lentz denies the allegations, but he has been suspended from serving as a priest and has been forced to move from the rectory while the archdiocese investigates.

AMERICAN CATHOLIC bishops meeting in Washington this week are saying that revisions to their tough child sexual abuse policy won't compromise the safety of children. They further say that changes under consideration won't diminish efforts to bar from ministry sexual predator priests. But the hierarchy of the American Catholic Church has a credibility problem. For decades, cardinals and bishops shielded accused clergy from the law and, worse, transferred them to new parishes where they could abuse again.

The Vatican has rejected at least part of a proposed policy on child sexual abuse adopted by the U.S. Catholic bishops in June because it conflicts with the rights of priests protected by church law, according to church sources. Vatican officials are expected to announce today that they have refused to approve parts of the policy that infringe on the rights of priests to due process contained in the Code of Canon Law, the regulations that govern the billion-member Roman Catholic Church, according to reports by the Associated Press and The New York Times.

`THERE CANNOT be forgiveness without confession and repentance. There cannot be healing without acknowledgement of pain and care for injuries. There cannot be trust without truth."

The following is a list of priests and brothers who have served in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and have been accused of child sexual abuse, according to church officials. The list includes some men who have admitted abusing children, as well as some who have denied any improper conduct. A number of the allegations cannot be corroborated, according to the archdiocese. In a few instances, the archdiocese said, it excluded allegations from the list when an investigation concluded that the facts did not indicate that sexual abuse occurred.

In Baltimore City Bail set for man, 60, charged in shooting of 3 youths in July A Baltimore man charged with shooting three youths who would not move off his front steps was granted $500,000 bail by a Circuit Court Judge Alfred Nance yesterday. William Banks, 60, had been denied bail twice by a District Court judge, and has been in jail since his arrest July 28. Banks' lawyer, Murray M. Blum, said his client will attempt to post the bail. Banks, of the 100 block of N. Decker Ave., is charged with attempted first-degree murder in the shooting of the youths, ages 11, 15 and 18. Ex-teacher pleads guilty to child sexual abuse A teacher who was fired from his job at a Baltimore Catholic girls' high school in May pleaded guilty yesterday to child sexual abuse in connection with his relationship with a 15-year-old student, according to the Baltimore state's attorney's office.