2012 Year in Review: The Philadelphia Clergy Child Sex Abuse Case

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The historic clergy abuse case in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia resulted in a guilty plea this year by one priest (see news story), and a church official was convicted of endangering children by protecting the predator priest (see news story).

The trial evidence — a lot of it from the church’s own secret files — exposed sins committed over a period of decades by supposed men of God.

The prosecution presented evidence of a pattern of conduct: predator priests routinely moved from parish to parish, left to attack again, with an endless supply of unwary victims.

“Obviously this has devastated their lives,” says Philadelphia prosecutor Evangelia Manos. “And it really amounts to destruction of a child.”

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