WILMINGTON, DE - A 74-year-old woman has sued the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales in Wilmington alleging she was raped by a Roman Catholic priest when she was 10.
Joyce Harper claims priest George A. Mahoney, a pastor assigned by the Oblates to Mary Our Mother of Sorrows and St. Peter the Apostle Churches in Centreville, MD and Queenstown, MD between 1956-1969, sexually abused her and another child when she was in the 4th grade.
According to Harper’s attorney, Thomas Neuberger, Harper was then threatened and told she would go to hell if she told anyone. In her early 20s, Harper reported Mahoney to Diocese of Wilmington priest Edward Carley who covered up the accusations, Neuberger says. Carley himself was “a notorious pedophile,” according to Neuberger.
Neuberger says Mahoney died in 1971.
In a press release, Harper’s attorney says the Oblates were sued 41 times under the Delaware Victims Act of 2007 and admitted to 12 known pedophile priests, but Mahoney was not included.
Harper has launched her lawsuit under the Maryland Child Victims Act of 2023 and seeks monetary damages for lifelong personal injury sustained in the alleged rape. The Maryland Child Victims Act allows victims of childhood sex abuse to sue no matter their age or how much time has passed since the incident.