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Thomas Finnerty is suing St. Mary’s Seminary and the Associated Sulpicians who run it, alleging child sexual abuse over years by a seminarian at St. Mary’s. Attorneys Michael Belsky and Catherine Dickinson, of Schlachman, Belsky, Weiner & Davey, P.A., are representing Finnerty. His alleged abuser, who is now dead, went on to be convicted in New Jersey as a priest for sexual offenses against minors.

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“There might be people that won’t be able to come forward until they’re 80, but it doesn’t make it any less meaningful for them,” Finnerty said. “And if you’re told not to come forward because it won’t do anything because of the statute of limitations, it’s just like basically saying you can molest little children and get away with it if you can hide it long enough. Is that really what you want to send a message about?”

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Thomas Finnerty remembers, as a child, when a police officer pulled over the car he was riding in on Saint Paul Street.

After the driver handed over an identification showing that he was a Catholic priest, the officer let the car go, Finnerty, 61, recalled in an interview with The Baltimore Sun. What the priest said to him next still haunts Finnerty decades later.

“He’s like, ‘All I have to do is let them know I’m a priest and I can do whatever I want,’” Finnerty recalled. “He was like, untouchable. For the only reason: Because he had a collar.”

Finnerty’s Irish Catholic parents had arranged for John Banko, who was studying to become a priest at St. Mary’s Seminary and University, to provide the 8-year-old with a religious education. Instead of tutoring Finnerty, Banko sexually abused him for about seven years, beginning around 1970, a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Baltimore Circuit Court alleges.