Expect More "Lie, Deny and Cover-up': Ex-philly DA Pessimistic Ahead of Report on Church
By Ivey DeJesus
A little over 15 years ago, right after The Boston Globe published a bombshell investigation exposing decades of widespread sexual abuse of children at the hands of hundreds of priests in the Archdiocese of Boston, Lynne Abraham hit upon the notion that if it was happening there it was surely happening in her hometown. Then Philadelphia's district attorney, Abraham launched what would become a legal benchmark in state history: She organized an investigation into child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. It would be the longest-running investigation into clergy sex abuse and put Pennsylvania on the map of jurisdictions that most aggressively have gone after child sex predators. Abraham dogged the investigation for several years, amassing a team of investigators numbering in the hundreds and subpoenaing church documents and officials from every rank - from the lowliest priest to the highest ranking cardinal. Empaneled grand jurors heard hours of gut-wrenching testimony from hundreds of victims, all giving credence to the attorney general's ultimate conclusion: that the archdiocese for years knew about the scores of predator priests in its midst and, not only did it not turn them over to law enforcement but shielded them from the public and parishioners. In 2005, Abraham delivered a blistering indictment against the archdiocese in reporting the findings of the grand jury investigation. The 400-plus page report gave detailed account of horrific abuse of hundreds of children by more than 60 priests and the complicit cover-up by church officials, including former archbishops Anthony Bevilacqua and Cardinal John Krol.
Assailed by the Roman Catholic Church for waging a campaign against the million-plus strong Philadelphia Catholic community, Abraham was lauded by victims, their families and victims groups. At one time, she was dubbed "America's deadliest DA." But Abraham walked away disappointed and empty handed. With the exception of one major conviction - that of Monsignor William Lynn - Abraham was unable to prosecute predators due to the fact that in almost every case the statute of limitations had expired. Abraham was angry then and remains so today just weeks ahead of the release of a grand jury report into the six remaining dioceses in Pennsylvania. "My speculation is that this new report will be similar, if not a copy, of the abuses we found in our 2005 report on clergy sexual abuse in the Philadelphia Archdiocese," Abraham said in a Wednesday interview with PennLive conducted via email. "It appears to me almost as if a script is passed around to every parish in the world reflecting the words and actions in the event of a new revelation of clergy sexual abuse. . . . This 'script' is what is found in every revelation - mock surprise, denial, lies, cover-ups, blaming the investigators, offers of therapy, and promises to help the victims, and see that this 'never happens again, followed by pious nonsense of the Sunday homily about 'if anyone has hurt anyone we profoundly apologize and will pray for their peace." The 2005 grand jury report out of Philadelphia and a subsequent one that in 2016 investigated similar systemic abuse in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, made the same conclusion: State laws needed to be reformed and expanded to afford victims a broader and more comprehensive shot at justice. State law was tweaked in 2006 after the Philadelphia report, and again in 2012 in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State sex abuse scandal, but in general, the parameters of the law with regards to how predators named in the upcoming report might be prosecuted for past crimes are largely unchanged. Similarly, the influence church powerbrokers leveled during Abraham's investigation and that out of Altoona-Johnstown remain unchanged. "The fact that the same things persist necessitating another investigation, this time across Pennsylvania should come as no surprise to anyone attuned to the corruption of the church," Abraham said. "The popes have known about sexual predators in the church for generations but thought the church was more important to protect than the children in their care and control. Nothing much has changed over these years. Their response consistently has been 'lie, deny and cover-up.' " The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, the church's legislative branch, and the insurance industry among others have for years pushed back on any reform legislation that would broaden and expand child sex crime laws, in particular any retroactivity elements that would give adults who were abused as children a chance to bring predators to justice. "Many of the legislators were also too pusillanimous for words refusing, or afraid, to stand for the children and against the bishops to force change. Why? Because legislators like nothing more than being re-elected and wouldn't risk the wrath of the church on their electorate," Abraham said. "As for the church and the insurance companies they were more concerned about the costs of lawsuits rather than fixing the problem and admitting their culpability of sexual predation." The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, and the insurance industry, along with the business sector, have long argued that retroactive reforms to the state's child sex crime law would be unfair and detrimental to their interests. The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference has said that a retroactive window would bankrupt a church that in many ways carries out hundreds of critical social services to at-risk communities. Church officials have also argued that memories fade with the passage of time so that testimonies of events that in some cases may have happened decades ago could be flawed. In general, the church supports expansion of extensions of the statute of limitations prospectively, not retroactively. Pennsylvania Catholic Conference is declining to comment on this legislative issue pending the release of the upcoming grand jury report. A former Common Pleas Court judge, Abraham was voted into the district attorney's office in 1991 to finish out the term vacated by predecessor Ronald D. Castille, who had resigned to run for mayor. The Philadelphia native went on to win four full four-year terms before retiring in 2009. She ran for mayor in the 2015 Democratic primary election, finishing third in the six-candidate field, and these days continues to practice law in Philadelphia. She notes - civil law - not criminal. "After 50 years of criminal law I wanted to see if my brain still works," Abraham quips. "It does." Abraham's investigative efforts are also the subject of a newly released independent Amazon documentary entitled, "Dark Secret," which chronicles the three investigations into the archdiocese. Abraham didn't pull punches then, and she still doesn't: She remains critical of Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, the head of the state Catholic Conference. The archdiocese in the 2005 investigation repeatedly concealed secret files of predator priests from investigators. "He talks about abuse and mouths platitudes while in the background he has mounted obstacles to this important legislation and a true accounting of the many priests who have been rapists, pornographers, and pedophiles," Abraham said.
To be sure, the archbishop has, as almost every diocesan head ,installed a commission dedicated to protecting minors. But he has engendered the outrage of victims, most famously with seemingly callous reflections made in 2015 after Pope Francis excoriated American bishops for failing to adequately handle abusive priests. Chaput then told reporters: "In some ways, we should get over this wanting to go back and blame, blame, blame. The church is happy to accept its responsibility, but I'm really quite tired of people making unjust accusations against people who are not to be blamed -- and that happens sometimes." To be sure, Pope Francis is largely signaling a new day across the 1.2 billion strong Catholic Church. Earlier this week, the pontiff accepted the resignations of three bishops from Chile, a Catholic country steeped in a clergy sex abuse scandal. His acceptance of the resignation of Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno, the city at the center of the uproar, signals a pontifical intent to restructure the country's battered Catholic community. The move affirms the pope's zero-tolerance policy and comes amid the trial of Cardinal George Pell in Australia and the recall to Rome of a papal emissary in Washington for viewing and exchanging child pornography over the internet. Abraham takes it all in cautious stride. "I haven't heard one prelate hollering from the pulpit or the rooftops, 'get these perverts out of our church!" she said. Abraham has seen too many high-ranking church officials in the past get a pass from the Vatican and live out their days in its opulent surroundings, as was the case with former Boston Cardinal Bernard Law. She awaits the grand jury report and bemoans the seismic shifts in the church. "I'm a regular foreign traveler and the Catholic churches I visit are almost empty every Mass," Abraham said. "Only some elderly women go to church. . . . Parishes and schools are closing, the faithful are sleeping in, and the cash register has stopped ca-chinging. This is all self-inflicted consequences and comes from centuries of crimes against the most vulnerable."
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