But waiting for him in the archbishop's office on that gusty Monday were two diocesan officials, two attorneys and the archbishop himself, William H. Keeler. They were seated at a round table, their faces grim.

Bracing himself, Maskell settled his large six-foot frame into a chair facing the others.

They got right to the point: A former student of Archbishop Keough High School, where Maskell had served between 1967 and 1975, was accusing him of having sexually abused her some 20 years earlier.

Now a 38-year-old mother of two, the Baltimore woman had only recently remembered these alleged abuses, and contacted the archdiocese in late June in search of an apology and some spiritual help. Church-hired private investigators had since failed to corroborate her allegations; nonetheless, officials wanted to confront the 53-year-old priest directly. Perhaps the show of force would prompt a confession.

But Maskell professed his innocence. He denied ever abusing anybody, and, according to a family member, even offered to take a lie detector test.

The archdiocese, says this family source, countered with more restrictive choices: Either check in to a Connecticut psychiatric facility, or step down from the pulpit.

Maskell looked to the archbishop. "What do you want me to do?" he asked.

Go to Connecticut, said Keeler.

Escorted back to Holy Cross, his parish in South Baltimore, Maskell was given just hours to pack a bag and leave the rectory. His disappearance from Baltimore was cloaked in secrecy; even fellow priests were denied details. Maskell's mother learned something was wrong only after receiving phone calls asking the whereabouts of her son. (To this day Maskell believes the emerging scandal hastened his mother's death months later.)

In an earlier era, a concerned archbishop might have taken the accused priest aside, chastised him and transferred him discreetly to another diocese. But with charges mounting nationally that the Catholic church lacked the fortitude to police its own ranks, the pressure was on for a show of self-prosecution.

Even given the prospect that Maskell might be unjustly accused, he would have to fight for himself under the new rules--without the protective embrace of the institution that had nurtured him for his entire adulthood.

SEXUAL ABUSE BY PRIESTS HAS ROOTED LIKE a cancer within the body of the American Catholic Church, eluding most public detection until the early '80s. More than 500 priests have since been accused, prompting legal actions that have drained Catholic coffers of up to $500 million.

The crisis contains disturbing truths about the power of human denial. And it has forced a nationwide soul-searching both inside the Church and out, all of it eventually arising from one profound question: What mechanism of the mind could so effectively suppress the conscience--especially the presumably higher conscience of a priest--that a man might permanently injure children entrusted to his care?

The recent publicity has also forced policy reviews within Catholicism's fraternal citadel: What is the proper Christian response to accusers? To an accused brother? To the parish community? And does the priesthood's celibate nature attract men who are earnestly fleeing their inappropriate urges, only to leave them ill-equipped in moments of temptation?

In heavily Catholic Central Maryland, these are no academic questions. Within the past decade, more than 12 area priests have been publicly implicated in the sexual abuse of minors. Most of these men have been stripped of their collars; one committed suicide.

Even against this grim backdrop, the allegations against Father Joseph Maskell reveal the Catholic crisis in its extreme. If the claims are true--and several of them defy belief--they portray a man suffering from more than a dangerous disorder; they show the quintessential authority figure, operating with a badly damaged moral compass, committing creatively diabolical acts against the innocent for years without correction.