BALTIMORE, Md. — It represents the first Roman Catholic seminary founded in this country more than two centuries ago, but now, St. Mary’s Seminary has emerged as the latest institution to draw legal action for allegations of child sex abuse.
Tom Finnerty’s family sent him there back in the Seventies for religious tutoring where a seminarian named John Banko allegedly exploited him.
“It happened at a very young age,” said Finnerty, “I was six years old in first grade and it went on for years.”
Whether it was outside in St. Mary’s parking lot or inside his private quarters, the alleged abuse ramped up over time with Banko plying Finnerty with alcohol and eventually even transmitting a sexual disease.
“This is a seminary. This is where they taught people how to be compassionate to people that needed it, cause that was their job,” said Finnerty, “and they did nothing to protect me. They took advantage of the people they were supposed to serve."
With the Archdiocese of Baltimore already in bankruptcy, the state’s highest court is scheduled to take up the Child Victims Act within the next month.
It’s a constitutional challenge to Maryland’s law, which repealed the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases.
Attorneys argue the seminary was a haven of pedophilia and sexual promiscuity decades ago, and it is a separate entity from the archdiocese.
“It is important for us to get out there and find other witnesses to support the claim,” said Attorney Michael Belsky.
Finnerty first reported the abuse in Baltimore 23 years ago and then testified in a criminal trial against his alleged abuser involving other victims in another state, but thus far, justice has eluded him for what he went through.
“The only reason I came forward was because I thought to myself, ‘How could I not say something about someone who might be doing this to a person that’s the same as my three sons? How can I not?’ So it doesn’t matter… it doesn’t matter about me. It mattered more about making sure that no one else was getting abused,” said Finnerty.
Responding to the lawsuit, the seminary offered this statement:
