PHILADELPHIA (PA)
JD Journal
On Thursday, Monsignor William Lynn of the Philadelphia Archdiocese was ripped apart by the prosecution and a gem, a true scintillating gem of Church logic came to fore. The reply given by Monsignor Lynn to the unhappy being identified in court records only as “Tim” was cited by the prosecutors. Tim, a former seminarian, had been repeatedly sexually abused by Reverend Stanley Gana, and a scathing 2005 grand jury report was cited on the exchange where Tim faced Monsignor Lynn. Tim asked why, even though the entire church knew that Stanley Gana was a confirmed pedophile, he was not evicted from the church.
The grand jury report says, “Monsignor Lynn asked the victim, who had been forced to have oral and anal sex beginning when he was 13 years old to understand that the archdiocese would have taken steps to remove Father Gana from the priesthood had he been diagnosed as a pedophile.”
“But Father Gana was not only having sex with children and teenage minors, Monsignor Lynn explained, he had also slept with women, abused alcohol and stolen money from parish churches,” informed the report of the grand jury.
The rationale: “That is why he remained, with Cardinal Bevilacqua’s blessing, a priest in active ministry. ‘You see, Tim,’” said Monsignor Lynn, ‘he’s not a pure pedophile.’”
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