BALTIMORE — A woman is suing the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, a Catholic order based in Delaware, for sexual abuse she says she suffered as a young girl at the hands of a priest on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Joyce Harper, 74, who now lives in Florida, alleges in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that Oblate priest George Mahoney, who has since died, sexually abused her and another girl after mass at Our Mother of Sorrows Church in Centerville more than 60 years ago.

In 1960, Mahoney invited Harper, who was 10, and three other girls to help him count the Sunday offering money, the complaint says. Mahoney allegedly took Harper and another girl to his room in the church rectory and sexually assaulted them, one at a time. According to the lawsuit, Mahoney told the girls, “If you tell anyone about this you will go to HELL.”

The Baltimore Sun does not name victims of sexual abuse without their consent.

“To this day I have flashbacks of the abuse I endured, and especially when I see a young girl,” Harper said in a statement, adding that she lost her faith. “After I grew up and left the Eastern Shore I never went to church on my own. I could not stand the mere sight of a priest and whenever I did I would have immediate flashbacks to evilness endured.”

Filed in Delaware Superior Court, Harper’s lawsuit cites Maryland’s Child Victims Act as legal authority.

Her attorney, Thomas Neuberger, described Harper as being relieved to be able to pursue the civil action because of Maryland’s law, given that she did not file suit when Delaware in 2007 passed a two-year window allowing for civil claims alleging decades old sexual abuse. He said she can sue in Delaware under “foreign law” because the Oblates are incorporated there.

Wilmington’s diocese declared bankruptcy in 2009, completing the case years later with a $77 million settlement to survivors and protection from further sex abuse lawsuits.

The Oblates joined the diocese’s bankruptcy case but were not protected from future claims, said Neuberger, who represented most of the survivors in that case.

Harper had no legal recourse until Maryland enacted its Child Victims Act in 2023. The law, which took effect Oct. 1, eliminated time limits for people sexually abused as children to sue the perpetrators and the institutions that enabled their torment.

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