PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Reuters
By Dave Warner
PHILADELPHIA | Mon Feb 20, 2012
(Reuters) – A criminal trial in the Philadelphia Catholic Archdiocese pedophilia scandal gets underway on Tuesday, a case likely to be watched closely as one defendant is the first high-ranking U.S. cleric to go to trial in a child sex abuse case.
Selection of a jury to hear child endangerment charges against Monsignor William Lynn and more severe sex abuse charges against two others is set to begin in Common Pleas Court.
While Lynn is not charged with sex abuse, the others on trial — one priest and one defrocked priest — are accused of sexually abusing children between 1996 and 1999. Another priest and a former archdiocese school teacher facing sex abuse charges will be tried separately.
The case not only puts a harsh spotlight on the Philadelphia Archdiocese, the nation’s sixth largest with 1.5 million adherents, but is worthy of attention from the Vatican, given Lynn’s rank as the highest U.S. church official to go to trial, experts say.
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