PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The American Conservative
Rod Dreher May 3rd, 2012
One of the mysteries of the Catholic sex abuse scandal was why didn’t good priests who knew, or strongly suspected, something awful was going on speak out? There are lots of reasons. A good one was just revealed in the ongoing Philadelphia trial of Msgr. William Lynn, who was the Archdiocese of Philadephia official in charge of clergy assignments under the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua. He’s on trial now for allegedly reassigning molester priests into parishes, knowing of their propensity for sexual abuse. A reader sent this startling account of recent revelations in the trial. Excerpts:
If you’re a priest in the archdiocese of Philadelphia, you can “act out sexually” all you want. You can get away with it for years, even decades at a time, while they transfer you from parish to parish, in between recuperative stays at St. John Vianney’s, the friendly archdiocese clinic for sex abusers. Just make sure that you don’t disobey an order from the archbishop. Because in the archdiocese of Philadelphia, that’s the one unpardonable sin for which there is zero tolerance.
To make that point Wednesday, the prosecution had Detective James Dougherty read into the record 34 formerly confidential documents regarding the case of Monsignor Michael C. Picard. And then, the prosecution brought the monsignor to the witness stand to tell his story.
Msgr. Picard was the pastor of an archdiocesan parish who, upon learning that a priest who had the reputation of being a sexually active gay man was being transferred into his parish, protested to Msgr. Lynn at the chancery. More:
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