PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NPR
[with audio]
by Barbara Bradley Hagerty
February 17, 2012
Between 1992 and 2004, Monsignor William Lynn was the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s point person for allegations of clerical abuse. When he heard a claim, he was supposed to investigate and, if warranted, remove or turn the priest over to police.
But as two grand juries reported in 2005 and 2011, that often didn’t happen.
“He willingly oversaw numerous reports of child sex abuse,” says Cardozo law professor Marci Hamilton, a consultant to the first grand jury. “And he willingly put these men in positions where they had second, third, fourth opportunities to abuse children in new settings.”
In most of those cases, the statute of limitations barred prosecutors from bringing criminal charges. But two cases have not expired, and prosecutors say Lynn criminally endangered two young men, allegedly raped when they were 10 and 14, by looking the other way.
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