PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer
Stalking. Groping. Gay bondage porn.
A sexually graphic love letter to a grade-school boy.
The topics discussed in a third-floor Philadelphia courtroom last week might unnerve most observers.
That they emerged in testimony about priests – and at times, from priests – only amplified the uneasiness. After all, a prosecutor told jurors at the start of this landmark clergy sex-abuse trial in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, priests are viewed as God’s agents on Earth.
Though much of the evidence introduced against Msgr. William J. Lynn had been outlined in two grand jury reports, the first week of his trial added a dimension to a scandal that has roiled Catholics for a decade.
Aired for the first time were secret church records, typed and hand-written, chronicling what Lynn and the local church hierarchy allegedly knew and did about priests suspected of abuse. There on the stand were victims describing as creepy predators men they had been taught to revere.
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