PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog
Ralph Cipriano
In the secret files of the archdiocese, a psychologist warned church officials that Father Edward M. DePaoli was a likely repeat offender.
Father DePaoli was the priest who got busted by U.S. Postal inspectors in 1985 for hoarding $15,000 worth of foreign kiddie porn under his bed in the rectory at the Holy Martyrs Church in Oreland, Pa. The feds raided the rectory and confiscated more than 100 magazines and 14 reels. In the archdiocese’s secret files, Dr. Eric Griffin-Shelley, Father DePaoli’s therapist, told church officials in 1986 that the priest was “likely to repeat his past behavior and become progressively worse.”
The psychologist suggested six months to one year of “intensive in-patient psychotherapy.” The major problem with letting Father DePaoli continue in ministry, the psychologist warned, was the danger that the priest might “go beyond fantasy in terms of his sexual urges toward children.” There was no indication that the priest was on the road to being rehabilitated, the psychologist reported. Despite being busted by the feds, Father DePaoli was still getting porn in the mail, Dr. Griffin-Shelley told church officials.
Besides his addiction to porn, Father DePaoli had other problems, the psychologist revealed in confidential documents displayed Monday at the ongoing archdiocese sex abuse trial, now in its third week. Father DePaoli had a “narcissistic personality,” the psychologist reported, plus a “compulsive personality disorder,” and a habit of forming “poor relationships with other people.”
Everything you’d want in a priest, right?
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