PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10
By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Monday, Apr 16, 2012
A college administrator testified Monday that a Philadelphia priest sexually assaulted him several times a week throughout high school.
The witness, a one-time priest, said he told church supervisors in the early 1990s that the Rev. Stanley Gana had abused him from 1980 to 1984. Yet Gana was not defrocked until 2006.
The man testified at the trial of Monsignor William Lynn, the first U.S. diocesan official charged with child endangerment for allegedly burying abuse complaints in secret files.
The witness said he never told his late parents of the abuse because they believed priests could do no wrong.
“They loved the church so tremendously that I could not break their hearts,” said the 45-year-old, who said he left the priesthood because of the pain the church had caused him. He now works at a college in Illinois.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.