Ordained: 1948
Status: Accused
Died: 08/11/1982
Diocese: Archdiocese of Baltimore MD
Father Robert Duerr, who served as a parish priest and a longtime teacher and principal at Mount De Sales Academy in Catonsville, was accused of sexual abuse in the early 1950s. He was publicly named as an accused individual by the archdiocese on April 24, 2019, and was also included in the Maryland Attorney General’s report published on April 5, 2023. Duerr passed away in 1982.
According to a former nun’s report to the archdiocese in 2002, while she was working at St. Rita’s in 1952-1953, she witnessed Duerr fondling third-grade altar boys at the parish school. She tried to report the abuse to the Archdiocese six years before but was told nothing could be done because Duerr was already deceased.
In 2012, another woman reported to the Archdiocese that she was sexually abused by Duerr from the early 1950s to the early 1960s, starting when she was only 7 years old at St. Rita’s. She claimed to have been raped for the first time before her first communion. She also told a nun about the abuse and believed that another priest at the parish, Father Charles Muth, knew about it.