PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Times
Published: Monday, January 14, 2013
For more than a decade now, since a Boston priest was convicted in 2002 of molesting a child, awareness of clerical sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church has been expanding nationwide.
Residents of Delaware County, one of five counties in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, were rudely awakened by the results of two Philadelphia grand jury investigations. The first grand jury report, spearheaded by former Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, identified 63 priests who had allegedly abused children as far back as the late 1940s, at least 43 of whom had connections to Delaware County. It also revealed the church hierarchy’s disturbing practice of reassigning accused abusers to new, unsuspecting parishes where they could feasibly victimize more children. None of the suspected pedophile priests could be prosecuted because the Pennsylvania statute of limitations had expired.
In 2006 that statute was expanded and a second grand jury investigation, launched by Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, resulted in the arrest of two priests, a defrocked priest and a Catholic school lay teacher. Also arrested was the Rev. Monsignor William Lynn for allegedly allowing suspected pedophiles to have continued access to children by not turning them over to civil authorities when he was secretary for clergy under former Philadelphia archbishop, the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.
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