645. Seton Keough High School

Seton Keough High School started as St. Joseph School of Industry in 1865. It was closed late 2017.

Father A. Joseph Maskell was a priest at the school in the 1960s and 1970s. For years he was able to secure abuse of girls by playing counselor. None questioned his work at the school. When evidence became too much, he moved on. In the end he had to emigrate to Ireland where he continued to work without any investigation done until he died a decade ago.

A lot of his former victims came forward. Some of the testimonies can be seen on the Netflix documentary “The Keepers”. As renaming a school is no longer a way to escape bad reputation the school closed in 2017 despite the fact that the present students sounded happy about their stay.

However the school never dealt entire with their past. For many years the abuse done by Maskell was covered up. The persons who did the cover-up remains to be investigated. It could not have been fun to be a teenage student there in the past.

Sources:

• Before ‘The Keepers,’ My Mother Was One Of Father Maskell’s Victims (The Huffington Post)
• Did the Catholic Church Get Away with Murder? (Rape victims of the catholic church)