PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By John P. Martin and Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writers
The two men followed starkly different paths to the witness stand.
The 49-year-old was raised in the outer suburbs, graduated from medical school, got married, and had five children. The 23-year-old from Northeast Philadelphia was kicked out of two high schools, attempted suicide, and spent much of the last decade hooked on heroin and prescription drugs.
But in tense and emotional testimony to a Common Pleas Court jury Wednesday, both former altar boys described a bond: Each said he was sexually abused by his parish priest, Edward Avery.
“God loves you, and this is what God wants,” Avery allegedly told the Philadelphia altar boy after forcing him to dance a striptease and engage in oral sex at St. Jerome’s Church in 1999, when the boy was 10.
Together, their testimony represented a pillar of the landmark conspiracy and endangerment case prosecutors are trying to prove against Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former secretary for clergy under Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua. They contend Lynn’s failure to remove Avery from active ministry after learning of one allegation in 1992 enabled the priest to abuse the fifth grader at St. Jerome’s seven years later.
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