The Keepers

I've just finished the seventh and final episode of this unforgettable documentary series.

It's a story of secrets and horrendous abuse of teenagers in a Baltimore Diocese.  It's a story of classmates who loved their murdered teacher enough to dig into every crevice in attempt to uncover the truth, and who continue following every thread of evidence fifty years later.

Each layer opens up another layer of horror--as women who were high school girls in the Sixties report repeated cruelty and sexual abuse by a priest who was a counselor in their school.  The murdered teacher of those girls was a young and vibrant nun who had promised one student to "make it stop" shortly before she disappeared.

What makes this story compelling on another level is that what happened to them was so horrific yet they had no voice at fifteen and sixteen to tell about it.  They'd been reared to believe so strongly in the priesthood that they  followed orders and took on the guilt of what happened.  Most of them never told anyone about it for twenty years until a Jane Doe stepped forward.

The cover-ups of the Catholic Church, the refusal of the courts at that time to acknowledge "buried memories," and the fact that these girls kept quiet while it was happening--all add up to a kick-in-the-gut story.  Maybe they could have talked with their parents?  To each other?  To teachers?

Oddly--even as they are now parents and grandparents themselves--they ask those same questions.  Looking back, they believe that other adults might have been looking the other way, that it was known that "something was happening."  But when they were being victimized, they were so brainwashed by the priest to believe that they were "evil whores," that they were terrified to report it to their parents.