PHILADELPHIA (PA)
MSNBC
By NBC News and wire services
PHILADELPHIA — Monsignor William Lynn, the most senior U.S. Catholic clergyman convicted in the church’s decades-long sex abuse scandal, was sentenced on Tuesday to three to six years in jail for covering up child sex abuse by priests in Philadelphia.
The sentence handed down by Judge M. Teresa Sarmina was less than the maximum penalty of seven years in prison for Lynn’s conviction on a single count of child endangerment.
Sarmina said the sentence was meant to punish Lynn for protecting “monsters in clerical garb who molested children … to destroy the souls of children, to whom you turned a hard heart.” …
“I believe that what Lynn did was done by just about every diocese,” Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks priest-abuse cases, told NBCPhiladelphia.com. “In most cases, I think the vicar general was well informed, and also the bishop.”
More than 500 U.S. priests have now been convicted of abuse, according to his organization. But Lynn’s three-month trial, he said, shows “just how hard it is to demonstrate collusion.”
Bishop Robert Finn and the Kansas City diocese face a misdemeanor charge of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse. Both Finn and the diocese have pleaded not guilty, and are set to go on trial next month.
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