PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog
Ralph Cipriano
At the Catholic sex abuse trial, it was good day to feel like throwing up.
On the witness stand Thursday, an amiable and smiling Monsignor William J. Lynn tried to defend the indefensible, by explaining away the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s criminal conduct of the past fifty years. It’s hard to justify how the church could repeatedly offer up its own innocent children as a regular sacrifice to the unbridled lusts of rampaging predator priests, but Lynn gave it a try, with predictable results.
But that wasn’t the only sickening sight in Courtroom 304. Over at the prosecution table, Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington was a study in fire-breathing indignation, as he pummeled the hapless monsignor for more than four hours, without showing any mercy, or common sense.
Who would want to see Mike Tyson in his prime whaling away on the Pillsbury doughboy? No wonder jurors often looked away as the bloodsport went on unabated, without anyone in Lynn’s corner tossing in the towel, or the judge calling the bout.
Blessington could have dissected Lynn on the facts, but instead he chose to repeatedly insult and demean a man in a priest’s collar who wasn’t fighting back. It seemed like the ideal way to create sympathy for Lynn among jurors. It may be the only way the defense has left to possibly win the case.
Meanwhile, in the courtroom, there was the odd spectacle of at least a dozen of Lynn’s parishioners from St. Joseph’s in Downingtown who showed up to support their pastor by watching and praying and clutching rosary beads.
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