New Page in Clergy Scandal

BALTIMORE —  When Dontee Stokes first alleged nine years ago that his parish priest had sexually molested him, the church rallied around its popular clergyman. Yellow ribbons sprouted outside St. Edward Roman Catholic Church, where congregants asserted the innocence of Father Maurice Blackwell.

But Wednesday, as Blackwell lay wounded in a hospital bed and his now 26-year-old accuser faced a charge of attempted murder, the church was locked up tight. Its new pastor took no calls.

Attitudes have shifted as sex abuse by clergy, a crime few could fathom a decade ago, now seems terribly commonplace. This time, violence has marked one case of alleged abuse, a tragedy played out in a struggling neighborhood where a priest and a young man lived for years, each with their mothers, two blocks apart.

“We live every day with the fear that something like this may happen,” said David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a Chicago-based support group. “There is so much pent-up pain that just now is finally beginning to surface.”

It boiled up on the 700 block of Reservoir Street on Monday night, when Stokes allegedly stuffed into a duffel bag a .357 Magnum revolver that few could believe such a peaceful man would own.

Blackwell, 56, was standing outside his row house when he was shot three times, allegedly by Stokes.

The priest suffered wounds to his hand and hip.

For some it was hard to figure why Stokes--a quiet barber who read the Bible and had no criminal record--would have sought revenge so long after the alleged crime was committed.

But others thought that was no mystery at all.

He was 17 when he told a therapist that his pastor had fondled him over a three-year period during Bible study sessions. Authorities investigated. Stokes never wavered from his account, taking two polygraph tests and passing them both.

But Blackwell denied the accusations and cooperated with police, insisting: “I don’t have anything to hide.”

The claim was classified as “inappropriate touching,” a fourth-degree misdemeanor with no witnesses. The state attorney’s office declined to file charges.

But an independent review board summoned by the church thought otherwise, finding the young Stokes “credible and consistent.”

Blackwell spent three months in a psychiatric treatment center in Connecticut that specialized in sexual abuse by clergy. An evaluation found “no clinical evidence of pedophilia,” and once Blackwell was released, Cardinal William Keeler, Baltimore’s archbishop, restored the priest to his parish on the condition that he no longer counsel young men.

The parish was overjoyed to have him back.

“He has great gifts for the vocation he has followed: enormous energy, great compassion ... an impish and irrepressible sense of humor,” officers of the parish council wrote to the Catholic Review, the weekly archdiocesan newspaper.

The ugly episode, widely publicized at the time, faded from memory for most everyone but Stokes. He left his Catholic high school for a public school, and then dropped out.

The neighborhood is small, and over the years he could hardly have avoided his alleged assailant. He must have passed him at the convenience store and on the street corners where Blackwell happily handed out volleyballs to the local children and won kudos trying to rescue drug peddlers from a life of crime.

Blackwell was, after all, something of a treasure to a Catholic Church that struggles to recruit priests, particularly African American ones.

Only the second black to be ordained in the Baltimore Archdiocese, he was widely praised for opening an office dedicated to black parishioners. He understood the culture so well that he instituted a tradition of broom-jumping at weddings, an old slave custom.

Stokes was respected in the neighborhood too--a boy who grew up on rough streets “but never did hang around with roughnecks,” one neighbor said. Devoted to the church in his youth, he avoided trouble that would have been easy to find.

Stokes took a job at Original Superman’s Barbershop, often bringing his daughter, nearly 2, to work with him. In August, he planned to marry his child’s mother. After the alleged abuse, he turned his back on the Catholic Church but not on faith itself, joining a Baptist congregation a few miles away.

In 1998, a second victim came forward, and Blackwell admitted to a five-year homosexual relationship with a minor that had ended 20 years earlier. For that transgression, he was placed on involuntary leave and suspended from celebrating Mass and other sacraments.

He went to work as executive director of Maryland One Church-One Addict, an interfaith program that urges congregations to help recovering addicts.

But Stokes’ complaints remained unavenged. Family and friends say he suffered from depression and once attempted suicide.

Monday night, as he headed to meet his fiancee, Stokes allegedly spotted Blackwell on Reservoir Street.

He circled back and addressed the priest, who refused to acknowledge him, according to the police report.

Witnesses said they heard Stokes demand an apology; Blackwell would not comply. Stokes then allegedly shot him, later telling police that he didn’t know what had come over him.

After the shooting, Stokes sought out his Baptist minister, who was holding a service at a local church. When the minister asked if anyone would like to come forward and dedicate his life to the Lord, Stokes rose from the wooden pews and walked toward the white altar. Church members prayed over him. Stokes asked to speak to the minister privately; then they both went to the police.

Shootings are not uncommon in this West Baltimore neighborhood; there was one Saturday night.

Under other circumstances, the Blackwell shooting would have been an open-and-shut case: A gunman drives by, shoots a man on the street and confesses.

But in this case, the residents are divided over who the victim is.

If Stokes was truly molested, then he was a teenage boy who did everything right: He went to authorities and the system failed him.

“It is terribly hurtful when a survivor gathers the courage to disclose abuse to church authorities and is then rebuffed,” said Clohessy of the Chicago support group. “It’s incredibly traumatic for people to have to run into their perpetrator, for survivors to see the priest who abused them still wearing the Roman collar.”

And Stokes’ friends believe the growing reports of sex abuse must have been too much for him to bear.

“He didn’t get any psychiatric help,” said Daaiyah Bryant, 24, who works with Stokes.

“Then to hear all of this now, every time you turn on the TV it’s ‘sex scandal, sex scandal.’ He probably just couldn’t hear it no more.”

If Blackwell is innocent, as some in the neighborhood firmly believe, then the system may serve him well in the end.

Stokes could face a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted of attempted murder; he is also charged with first- and second-degree assault and handgun violations.

“I don’t think he did it. I don’t think he forced himself on anybody. The Catholic Church is making him seem like a dirty old priest,” insisted M.L. Hearn, who lives on a street that runs right up to Blackwell’s house.

He was the first to respond to the shots, called 911 and shielded the priest’s mother from the sight.

On Wednesday, Stokes appeared in court via closed-circuit monitor, asking the judge to release him on bail so he could see his family.

“I just want to say I’m not a flight risk and I’m not at risk to myself,” he said. “Although I may be depressed, I’m not suicidal.”

The judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation, postponing the arraignment until Friday.

Stokes’ mother professed her love for him on television, a picture of her son as a toddler behind her. “I believed him from the Day 1 and I’m still here with him,” she said.

The family set up a post office box, inviting others who may say they are victims of Blackwell to come forward.

The church has acknowledged only the two known complaints.

At the barbershop, Stokes’ station, third from the door, stood empty as the phone rang with offers of assistance. His boss, Kelly Jones, vowed to go to every court hearing and promised that his job would be waiting.

And outside the house on Mount Royal Terrace that Stokes shares with his mother, a black ribbon hung from the porch lamp.

Times staff writer Elizabeth Shogren contributed to this report.