The Archdiocese of Baltimore speaks ahead of Netflix series on murdered nun

No one knows who killed Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik.

A young nun who was on a year’s leave of absence, Sister Cathy, as friends called her, was murdered sometime while running an errand on the evening of November 7, 1969. She was 26 years-old.  

Her body was found in a dump two months later, though authorities have never been able to identify her killer.

This summer, a Netflix documentary series called “The Keepers” is reopening the case, talking to witnesses and examining the evidence before the case goes cold forever.

The circumstances surrounding the death of Sr. Cathy are precarious.

A member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame since the age of 18, Sr. Cathy and her friend Sister Helen Russell Phillips both took a leave of absence in 1969 and moved out of the convent into an apartment together.

A thoughtful and well-liked teacher, Sr. Cathy had taught English at Archbishop Seton Keough Catholic High School for several years.

The chaplain of Keough at the time, Fr. A. Joseph Maskell, was later accused by former students of numerous counts of rape and sexual abuse during his time at the school, which first came to light through accusations made in the early 1990s. Fr. Maskell was subsequently removed from ministry, and fled the United States in 1994. He was never charged with a crime before his death in 2001.

Many believe that Fr Maskell, who was also the chaplain of the Baltimore police at the time, murdered Sr Cathy to keep her quiet and used his connections to cover up his crimes.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has always denied claims of a widespread conspiracy to cover up Sr Cathy’s death and to hide the crimes of Fr Maskell, and it maintains that the archdiocese had no prior knowledge of the sexual abuse of Fr Maskell or his connection to Sr. Cathy until the ‘90s, when several victims came forward. There is no hard evidence to suggest that the archdiocese was involved in a cover-up of the case.

“Suggestions of a cover-up by the Archdiocese are speculative and false,” the archdiocese said in a recent statement outlining talking points before the release of the Netflix series.

The archdiocese said that it was willing to provide comment and to answer questions for the producers of the new Netflix series about the case.

“Unfortunately, the producers asked very few questions of the Archdiocese before releasing the series and did not respond to the Archdiocese’s request to receive an advanced copy of the series. Advanced copies were provided to media outlets,” the archdiocese notes on its website.