The Keepers

In the face of true evil what does it take to make things right; if things can be set right at all? The Keepers may seem like an ordinary Netflix documentary series initially, that's what I thought when watching it myself but it wasn’t until the end of the first episode that I found something invigorating in its documentation and examination of the muder of Sister Cathy, it became much bigger than the death of a nun in a high school, it was the story, a web, that tied these women together leading back to one man hidden by one authority - The Catholic Church. It was the church that created a place for monsters to hide in. It was the perfect breeding ground for those who have no empathy for others to abuse their power and all it took was a place like Baltimore to be the center of this story. It’s not a pretty story. It isn’t easy to listen to. Though it may be hard to ingest like a bitter intolerable pill it must heard because it is a testimony of what can happen under the guise of protection for the community. Sister Cathy was a nun younger than her peers facilitated an easier connection with the girls going to Seton Keough High School. As we are introduced to the world of Catholic upbringing The Keepers establishes early on the beauty and grace of Sister Cathy, she was the shining beacon at the school making the girls feel safe. She was someone who introduced the girls to new literature, to music, and to new worldly perspectives. In summation, she was what these girls needed as the devil lived right down the hallway in a cornered off office. In there lies the antithesis of Sister Cathy, Joseph Maskell, a figure disguised as a human being. He walked and talked like anyone else, but beneath his combover and dilapidated smile lies what could only be described as evil incarnate. Joseph Maskell was a rapist. A demonic force that took advantage of anyone he could. He knew how to blend right in with people making them never suspect who he truly was. Yet, Sister Cathy began to suspect something was wrong with the girls at the school as she began to notice names being called to Joseph Maskell’s office more than others. Through non-verbal confessions Sister Cathy began to see what was happening to the poor girls at Seton Keough High School whose lives were robbed of any peace from the devil known as Father Joseph Maskell. In the story leading up to this point you are sickened by what you hear as you begin to detest the figure Maskell, but you also wonder how this involves the death of Sister Cathy. That is where the nature of the documentary begins to emerge. It lures you in by being a true-crime doc about the death of a nun, but you begin to see what it really is trying to reveal - the systematic protection of pedophiles abusing children. In the documentary it is assumed that Maskell had something to do with the death of Cathy. Her life which was once so bright and shining was utterly annihilated at the hands of an abyssal darkness moonlighting as a trustworthy communal figure. The pain seen in the eyes of the survivors in the documentary is on full display as you helplessly watch them recall events that would shatter the life of anyone who had gone through what these survivors had gone through. It then spirals further from just the death and the cover-up of the Catholic Church in Baltimore to the speaking out of Maskell’s abuse in the 90s’. This is when it became public knowledge for the first time what was happening at the school in the 60s’. This in turn focuses the story on the speaking out of abuse and how the community largely denied such events ever occurring. It couldn’t be that the person who blessed your children during mass was also the same person abusing them. The community of Baltimore wasn’t ready to accept such a reality. The Keepers initiates that point of view from the community through the collection of archival footage and utter disapproval from the town. These survivors fought for their day in court to be denied. They tried to speak out against what happened to them only to be pushed back into the annals of history. They were silenced again. It becomes a harrowing story of what abuse does to someone. How it lives with someone forever. They will always have that as part of their lives. Some might be able to let it subside in their unconscious minds for decades while some can never forget it. The story then shows how much these people have been able to do. That it wasn’t going to be what defined them; that they couldn’t let a vicious system take away what they could do for themselves and others. Some went on to have families while others went on to become lawyers for victims of abuse. It is in the closing chapters of this story that we see these women who have been through so much trying to find some solace in what has taken place. That their story doesn’t have to end in the silencing of their abuse, but that it can continue to be told and heard and eventually it will break through the abyss - that one day they can be heard and seen.