PENNSYLVANIA
Lancaster Online
By ELIZABETH EISENSTADT-EVANS
Correspondent
bellettrelliz@gmail.com
There’s a difference, sometimes a big difference, between justice and the law.
In June of 2012, Monsignor William Lynn, a high-ranking official in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, was convicted on one-count of child endangerment for providing a priest, Edward Avery, a venue in which he would go on to abuse a boy.
Formerly the archdiocesan secretary for clergy, Lynn’s case seemed precedent-setting at the time because, while he wasn’t directly involved in abusing children, he was the person responsible for oversight of clergy in the archdiocese.
Part of that responsibility, one would assume (as it turned out, wrongly), involved reporting abuse to secular authorities. Instead, Lynn transferred them from one church to another.
Last week, Lynn’s conviction was reversed by the state appeals court. This week, the same judge who sentenced him to serve- 3 to 6 years in prison, M. Teresa Sarmina, has set the terms of bail on which he can be released (she also ruled that he must be subject to electronic monitoring and give up his passport as Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams appeals the reversal).
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