When the mother in suburban Atlanta remembers those days, the warning signs were there.
There were fights when she drove her son to classes for his first Communion. He begged her not to leave him. The family felt unsettled by a Christmas letter from the priest they hardly knew.
“At the end of the letter, he said, ‘How is my sweet little [boy],’ and there, I felt really nauseous for some reason. It’s like someone punched me in the stomach,” the mother would tell attorneys in a deposition. “I told my husband. I said, ‘Look at this letter. It doesn’t sound right to me.’ ”
They would later learn what troubled their son. He alleged in a 2018 federal lawsuit in their home state of Georgia that he had been made to perform a sexual act on the Rev. John Peter Krzyzanski — “or he would not get into heaven.”
That allegation appears nearly word for word on Page 440 of the Maryland attorney general’s recent report into child sexual abuse and cover-ups within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. After Georgia, Krzyzanski worked a decade at a Franciscan friary in Ellicott City.
But someone reading the report won’t find his name. He’s anonymous, just listed as “#151.”
Krzyzanski is one of 10 living church figures accused of abuse whose identities are redacted from the report. The names were hidden because they surfaced during the confidential grand jury investigation that produced the report — not because of doubts about the credibility of the allegations.
Attorney General Anthony Brown underscored thatpoint last month when he said the archdiocese may “legally release those names to the public at any moment.”
A Baltimore Banner investigation has uncovered the identities of three of the redacted clergy members. Online court records show none of the three have been charged with a crime in Maryland. Identities of the other seven could not be confirmed. None of the 10 are in ministry within the archdiocese today, a church spokesperson said.
To identify them, reporters matched details in the report to court transcripts, archdiocesan letters, church directories, news articles and other public documents. The family in suburban Atlanta requested anonymity. The Banner does not identify victims of sexual abuse without their consent. In addition to Krzyzanski, the other priests are:
- The Rev. Samuel Lupico (No. 152)
- The Rev. Joseph O’Meara (No. 155)
An archdiocesan spokesperson cited the confidentiality order of the court in declining to confirm or refute the three names. The attorney general’s office declined to comment for this article.
The story continues at The Baltimore Banner: Secret no more: 3 priests from sex abuse report identified
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