PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
[The Philadelphia Archive – BishopAccountability.org]
John P. Martin, Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted: Wednesday, January 23, 2013
A watchdog group that runs an online clearinghouse of clergy-sex abuse allegations began publishing Tuesday the first of 5,700 pages of documents about past claims against Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests.
The group, BishopAccountability.org, culled the documents from evidence introduced at last year’s landmark child-endangerment trial of Msgr. William J. Lynn.
The records include confidential church memos, e-mails, psychological evaluations, and correspondence among archdiocese officials, accusers, and more than 20 priests who served in area parishes over the last half-century.
The allegations are not new – all were aired in two grand jury reports or at Lynn’s trial – and the accused priests they mention are dead, defrocked, or removed from ministry. But the website offers the first unfiltered public look at details of those claims, and of documents locked for years in what the archdiocese called its Secret Archives.
Many were drafted by Lynn and approved by Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua or by their predecessors. They chronicle what church officials knew and did after a priest was accused of abusing a minor.
Terence McKiernan, the president of BishopAccountability, said the records add a layer of public understanding to the grand jury investigations and prosecution of Philadelphia-area priests, which he said were unlike any others in the country.
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