ABUSE TRACKER

MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Sunday, December 29, 2013

Source: Jim Accurso

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis today announced that Fr. Joseph Gallatin has agreed to take a leave of absence from active ministry. Fr. Gallatin’s clergy file recently was reviewed as a part of the comprehensive file review by an outside professional firm that currently is reviewing files of all clergy in active ministry.

This review has identified a single incident of inappropriate conduct with a minor many years ago involving a boundary violation. The outside professional review team has concluded that the incident did not involve a crime. However, to ensure all appropriate steps have been taken, the archdiocese also recently informed law enforcement about the incident.

Fr. Gallatin has been serving as a pastor at the Church of St. Peter in Mendota since July 2008. While on his leave of absence, Fr. Gallatin will remain pastor but will not be performing any public ministry until a final review is complete.

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MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese says two pastors are taking leaves as a result of an ongoing review of clergy files.

The Rev. Joseph Gallatin is pastor at the Church of St. Peter in Mendota. The Rev. Mark Wehmann is pastor at St. Boniface in Minneapolis. The archdiocese says they won’t be performing public ministry pending a final review.

The company reviewing the files found Gallatin was accused of one incident of inappropriate conduct with a minor involving what the church calls a “boundary violation.” The firm says the incident wasn’t criminal, but has referred it to police.

–The review of Wehmann found several incidents of boundary violations. The archdiocese says police were told about most of them previously and determined charges weren’t warranted.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JIM ADAMS , Star Tribune Updated: December 29, 2013

The priests were identified as being involved in inappropriate conduct years ago.

Two more Catholic priests have taken leaves from active ministry after an outside firm retained by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis found the priests had been involved in inappropriate conduct with minors in past years.

The Archdiocese announced Sunday that the Rev. Mark Wehmann and the Rev. Joseph Gallatin have agreed to take leaves of absence after their files were reviewed by Kinsale Management Consulting, of Los Angeles. The two will remain pastors but won’t perform public ministry until the reviews of their “boundary violation” incidents are completed.

The leaves come as Twin Cities Catholics confront a flood of allegations of priest sexual abuse and accusations that some Catholic leaders ignored warnings of sexual misconduct.

The scandal already has toppled Archbishop John Nienstedt’s vicar general, the Rev. Peter Laird, and prompted abrupt resignations from the University of St. Thomas board by former Archbishop Harry Flynn and his former top deputy, the Rev. Kevin McDonough. Both have been criticized for not responding appropriately to allegations of sexual abuse by priests.

Archbishop Nienstedt also voluntarily stopped public ministry on Dec. 17, while St. Paul Police investigate an allegation that he inappropriately touched a male minor on the buttocks in 2009 during a group photography session following a confirmation ceremony. Nienstedt called the claim “absolutely and entirely false.”

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A Jesuit priest of the Oregon Province ordained in 1952, Fallert spent his entire career in rural Alaska. He was a school principal, parish pastor and, for five years, Alaska’s Jesuit Superior General. He died in 1990. Fallert was accused in a 2009 lawsuit of the sexual abuse of a girl in St. Michael’s, Alaska in the 1950s.

Ordained: 1952
Died: 1990

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UNITED STATES
Talking Points Memo

CAITLIN MACNEAL – DECEMBER 29, 2013

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, on Sunday praised Pope Francis for changing the way the world views the Catholic church.

“This pope has successfully, finally shattered the caricature of the church that his predecessors have tried hard to do,” Dolan said on ABC’s “This Week.” “What’s that caricature? That the church is kind of mean and dour and always saying no and always telling us what we can’t do and always telling us why we should be excluded. He’s saying, no, come on in, the church is about warmth and tenderness.”

Dolan said that Catholic leaders were surprised by how effective Pope Francis has been at improving the image of the church.

“What we were after was a good pastor with a track record of solid administration but fatherly warm, tender care for the sheep, for his people,” Dolan said. “And, boy, we got that on steroids with Pope Francis. He’s the world’s parish priest.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Road to Recovery

Road to Recovery, Inc.
P.O. Box 279
Livingston, NJ 07039
862-368-2800
roberthoatson@gmail.com

MEDIA RELEASE
DECEMBER 29, 2013

Bail hearing for Philadelphia priest, Msgr. William Lynn, who supervised sexually abusive clergy is another “punch in the gut” to clergy sexual abuse survivors

Survivors of sexual abuse will call on judge to deny bail to Philadelphia priest who enabled sexual abuse of children

Once again, highly-placed religious leaders might be “bailed out” of responsibility for enabling sexual abuse of children while many survivors will never be bailed out of their misery

What: A demonstration calling on Judge Teresa Sarmina to deny bail to Msgr. William
Lynn, former Secretary for Clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, who was convicted by a jury of his peers in a Philadelphia courtroom of enabling the sexual abuse of children by his clergy colleagues.

When: Monday, December 30, 2013 at 9:00 A.M.

Where: On the sidewalk in front of the courthouse at 1301 Filbert Street, Philadelphia, PA
19107.

Who: Members of Road to Recovery, a non-profit charity that assists victims of sexual
abuse, including a man from suburban Philadelphia who will speak about his sexual abuse by a priest in another state. Many of the other demonstrators are survivors of clergy sexual abuse in the Philadelphia Archdiocese and surrounding dioceses and states.

Why: Once again, the criminal justice system favors sexual abusers and enablers of
sexual abuse. Monsignor William Lynn was convicted by a jury of his peers who heard months of testimony, including poignant and credible accounts by survivors of clergy sexual abuse. He was deemed to be a criminal, and survivors of clergy sexual abuse once again call on the courts for free and equitable treatment. Up to this point, laws and religious leaders have not bailed victims out of their trauma and treated them with the respect they deserve, and Msgr. William Lynn is one such church leader who has not treated clergy abuse victims honesty, truthfully, and compassionately. He was convicted for such behavior by a jury of citizens who judged his behavior to be criminal. Lynn does not deserve to be bailed out unless and until every one of the victims to whom he denied fair hearings is “bailed out” of their pain.

Contacts: Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D. – President, Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By ROSS DOUTHAT
Published: December 28, 2013

IN ancient Sanskrit, the word “pundit” meant “wise man” or “religious sage.” In modern English, it means “often wrong, rarely accountable.” There are ways that those of us who scribble about politics can avoid living down to that reputation — by keeping our predictions vague (it worked for Nostradamus), by sticking to sure things (I told you Herman Cain wouldn’t be elected president), or by deploying weasel words like “it’s possible that …” at every opportunity. But time, chance and fallibility eventually make false prophets of us all. …

2. I underestimated Pope Francis — or misread the media. In columns pegged to Pope Benedict’s unexpected retirement and Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s elevation to the papacy, I made two claims: first, that a new “Catholic moment” in American life could “only be made by Americans themselves,” and second, that the new pope’s “evocative name” and “humble posture” wouldn’t be sufficient to repair the church’s image absent concrete steps to extend accountability for the sex-abuse scandal to the upper reaches of the hierarchy.

Given the subsequent media fascination with Francis, my attempt to minimize the papacy’s importance in American religious life may have been somewhat premature. More important, I was entirely wrong about the Vatican’s image being inextricably tied to the legacy of the sex-abuse crisis. To date, the new pope has done much less than the underappreciated Benedict on that front, but nobody in the Western press seems to care: even as American bishops continue to mishandle abuse cases, Francis’s blend of charisma, asceticism and inclusivity have been sufficient to reverse a decade of bad press for Catholicism.

In a way, I’m grateful to have been wrong, since the message and mission of the church deserve as much attention as the continuing blindness of some bishops. But that blindness still needs to be addressed, and it’s troubling, and telling, that the media would give a more liberal-seeming pope a pass on an issue they hammered his predecessor on at every opportunity. And if I’d been just a little more cynical about these things, I probably would have seen it coming.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The Salvation Army knows how to strike a good business deal (see yesterday’s posting on Kettering Textiles). The Chairman of the trading company of the organisation in the U.K., “Lt-Col” Ivor Telfer, popped up as the Chairman of the Salvation Army’s Olympic Task Force. He got a good deal out of the London Olympics Committee.

The Salvation Army owns the 900 acre Hadleigh Farm, which is used to provide employment training and life skills for youth under various government programs. Somehow, Telfer convinced Olympics officials to make the farm the venue for the mountain bike events, over several other applicants. Normally, Olympic events sites remain in the hands of government bodies of one form or another.

In this case, the Salvation Army acquired a $1.2 million facility, at taxpayer expense, which it gets to keep, and make money from. The main income from the farm prior to the Olympics was selling the malt used to manufacture the popular confectionary, “Maltesers”.

The farm had also run a shop, café and tea-room before, relying on local tourism. As part of the deal, the government paid for highway and local road up-grades to Hadleigh Farm, enabling it, in future, to handle larger numbers of tourists.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams is asking Judge M. Teresa Sarmina to deny bail to Msgr. William J. Lynn, on the basis that Lynn is a “flight risk” who may seek refuge in the Vatican.

A panel of three Superior Court judges on Dec. 26th reversed Lynn’s “historic” 2012 conviction on one count of endangering the welfare of a child, and said that the monsignor should be “discharged forthwith.” But the D.A. isn’t going along with the higher court’s opinion at a bail hearing scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday before Judge Sarmina.

Lynn was labeled a “flight risk” in a six-page answer to a petition for a bail hearing filed by Hugh J. Burns, Jr., chief of the D.A.’s appeals unit. The monsignor is a “high ranking official [in] a worldwide organization, the Roman Catholic Church, that has both diplomatic and non-diplomatic facilities in many nations,” Burns wrote.

The evidence presented at Lynn’s trial “established that numerous individuals within that organization are closely associated with [Lynn] and may be willing to improperly assist him out of personal interest without proper sanction,” Burns wrote.

In response, Lynn’s lawyer, Thomas A. Bergstrom, said, “The whole thing is idiotic. These guys [in the district attorney’s office] are the most unprofessional lawyers I’ve ever run across in my life. They simply ignore the law and they’re gonna continue to do it. But that [Superior Court] order applies to them as well.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Allgemeine Zeitung

[Summary: The dioceses of Mainz, Speyer and Trier have paid at least 665,000 euros to victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. A total of 113 applicants have been compensated so far.]

Von Birgit Reichert, dpa
Trier (dpa/lrs) – Die Bistümer Mainz, Speyer und Trier haben bislang mindestens 665 000 Euro an Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs in der katholischen Kirche gezahlt. Insgesamt 113 Antragsteller seien bis dato entschädigt worden, ergab eine Umfrage der Nachrichtenagentur dpa.

Vor knapp vier Jahren hatte ein Missbrauchsskandal die katholische Kirche in Deutschland erschüttert. Die sexuellen Übergriffe von Priestern und Geistlichen lagen Jahrzehnte zurück, wurden dann aber erst aufgedeckt. Seitdem haben sich deutschlandweit rund 1300 Opfer bei der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz (DBK) gemeldet, sie wurden mittlerweile mit mehreren Millionen Euro entschädigt.

Als die katholische Kirche im März 2011 den Startschuss für «materielle Leistungen in Anerkennung des Leids der Opfer» gab, türmten sich die Anträge bei der DBK aus allen Bistümern. Knapp drei Jahre später ist die Antragsflut vorbei. «Die Zahl der Anträge ist massiv zurückgegangen», sagte der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Bischofskonferenz, Triers Bischof Stephan Ackermann.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

Knapp vier Jahre nach Enthüllung des Missbrauchsskandals hat die katholische Kirche schätzungsweise rund sechs Millionen Euro an die Opfer gezahlt. Rund 1300 Menschen stellten bei der Koordinierungsstelle der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz (DBK) einen Antrag auf Entschädigung. In den allermeisten Fällen habe die Expertenstelle eine Geldzahlung empfohlen, die über die jeweiligen Bistümer oder Orden erfolge, sagte ein Sprecher der DBK. Im Durchschnitt flossen pro bewilligtem Fall rund 5000 Euro, wie eine Umfrage der Nachrichtenagentur dpa ergab.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Radio Vatikan

[Summary: About 6 million euros have been paid to victims of abuse by the German Catholic Church. A total of 1,300 applications were made for compensation throught the coordination office of the German Bishops Conference. In most cases, experts have recommended payment of money.]

Etwa sechs Millionen Euro hat die katholische Kirche in Deutschland bisher an die Opfer von Missbrauchsfällen gezahlt. Das berichtet die die Nachrichtenagentur dpa. Insgesamt seien rund 1.300 Anträge auf Entschädigung bei der Koordinierungsstelle der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz (DBK) gestellt worden. In den allermeisten Fällen habe die Expertenstelle eine Geldzahlung empfohlen, die über die jeweiligen Bistümer oder Orden erfolge, sagte ein Sprecher der DBK. Im Durchschnitt flossen pro bewilligtem Fall rund 5.000 Euro, wie die Umfrage der Nachrichtenagentur ergab.

Situation in den einzelnen Bistümer
Die Bistümer Mainz, Speyer und Trier haben bislang mindestens 665.000 Euro an Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs in der Kirche gezahlt. Insgesamt 113 Antragsteller seien bis dato entschädigt worden, ergab eine Umfrage der Deutschen Nachrichtenagentur. Im Erzbistum München und Freising wurden bei 36 Anträgen bislang in 26 Fällen insgesamt 134 000 Euro ausgezahlt. Daneben wurden Therapie- und Fahrtkosten übernommen in Höhe von etwas mehr als 32.000 Euro. Das Erzbistum Paderborn überwies bisher 297.500 Euro Entschädigungen. Hinzu kämen 21.500 Euro für Therapiekosten, sagte ein Bistumssprecher. Das Bistum Limburg, das sich auch über Teile von Rheinland-Pfalz erstreckt, hat nach früheren Angaben mindestens 91.000 Euro an Entschädigungen bezahlt. 28 Anträge wurden gestellt. In 24 Fällen davon seien Zahlungen geleistet worden. Das Bistum Limburg machte zur neuen Umfrage jedoch keine Angaben zur Zahl der Verdachtsfälle von sexuellem Missbrauch. Im Erzbistum Berlin bekamen bislang zwölf Opfer Geld: Insgesamt 53.000 Euro. Angaben zu den einzelnen Summen machte ein Sprecher nicht. 13 Personen hätten Anträge gestellt. Das Bistum Fulda entschädigte alle bekannten Opfer nach Angaben von Anfang Januar 2013 mit mindestens 37.500 Euro.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Delaware County Daily Times

By Christine Flowers, Delaware County Daily Times
POSTED: 12/29/13

Beware of those who want to be “on the right side of history.” Sometimes, that’s just code for “the law be damned, I’ll do whatever I, the omniscient arbiter of right and wrong, want to do.”

Kathleen Kane is one of those legal systems unto herself, looking at the Pennsylvania statutes as being optional, particularly the one that bars same-sex marriage. Bruce Haynes is another, following in the attorney general’s footsteps with his crusade to issue worthless marriage licenses to hopeful spouses. The members of Philadelphia City Council were in lockstep with them, passing gun control legislation even though they knew that the state had sole jurisdiction.

In the Haynes case, the Commonwealth Court slapped him down, telling Mr. “Right Side of History” that he better go back and take a remedial course in civics. City Council also had its comeuppance by the same appeals court. As for Queen Kathleen, the jury — or rather, the judge — is still out.

But she might take some guidance from what happened this week in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, and realize that not every moral crusader gets away with spitting on the Constitution in the pursuit of a “noble” end.

On Thursday afternoon, the appeals court overturned the child endangerment conviction of Monsignor William Lynn, who had been convicted of the charges in what appeared to many as a fatally flawed prosecution back in 2012.

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UNITED STATES
Los Angeles Times

By Soumya Karlamangla
December 28, 2013

When the Vatican censured an organization representing thousands of American nuns, it did so in part because the group had not spoken out enough against gay marriage and abortion.

The Vatican said the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had espoused “radical feminist themes,” adding, “Issues of crucial importance to the life of Church and society, such as the Church’s Biblical view of family life and human sexuality, are not part of the LCWR agenda in a way that promotes Church teaching.”

Now, some observers of the Roman Catholic Church are wondering whether the arrival of a new pope will thaw the frosty relationship between the nuns and the Holy See.

In September, 17 months after the censure, Pope Francis said: “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods.” Since he took office in March, the pontiff has also repeatedly spoken about the need for economic justice, which would seem to match the nuns’ emphasis on serving the poor.

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UNITED STATES
Legal Examiner

Posted by Mike Bryant
December 28, 2013

Fear, embarrassment, even guilt. These are things that most survivors of sexual abuse feel at some point. The strength it takes to move on after this abuse is tangible, and yet so many will still not fight against it. Being abused by anyone is tragic, especially when it comes from someone you are supposed to be able to trust. It changes your perspective on how you see people, even those closest to you. Over the next month as we continue to talk about sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church one thing needs to be made clear; it is okay to get help. Taking that first step and admitting you are or have been harmed is the hardest part, but you may be surprised to learn that you are not alone, and there are so many people willing to help you find the relief and justice you deserve.

We have been presented with huge opportunities to finally bring these cases out in the open and put them to rest. In May of 2013 the Child Victims Act was announced, most recently the Catholic Church has been ordered to present a list of names of those priests who have been accused of sexual abuse, more and more people are standing up to the suffering they have endured. The Catholic Church has been proven to hide incriminating evidence and move its priests to different parishes in the attempt to protect those who have been accused of abuse. Now is our chance to shine the light on what has happened and do what we can to put an end to it.

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VIRGINIA
Richmond Times-Dispatch

WHY YOU KNOW HIM: The founder and former senior pastor of the Richmond Outreach Center was arrested in May when Texas authorities charged him with sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl and her 13-year-old sister.

About a year ago, Aguilar was flying high. His congregation followed his every word, his sermons were like rock concerts and the church he founded was poised for further growth.

Now, Aguilar has lost his job at the megachurch on Midlothian Turnpike, he’s been removed from the home where he lived and he is awaiting trial. A guilty verdict could send him to prison for the rest of his life.

Aguilar’s troubles began in May when he was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting two young girls in Texas. Authorities allege that the abuse began in September 1996 in the girls’ home, where Aguilar had been invited to live, and lasted about a year.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

BEN FINLEY, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Sunday, December 29, 2013

PHILADELPHIA Prosecuting Msgr. William J. Lynn was never going to be an open-and-shut case.

As far back as 2005, after scores of alleged victims told a grand jury about being abused by Philadelphia-area priests, prosecutors were divided over whether criminal charges would stick against the archdiocese’s former secretary for clergy.

“Every prosecutor who looked at it could say, factually, these guys were endangering children,” said Will Spade, an assistant district attorney at the time. “But some people thought the [state’s child-endangerment] statute didn’t apply, and others thought it did.”

The debate resurfaced last week when Superior Court reversed Lynn’s 2012 conviction on endangerment charges.

In a 43-page opinion released Thursday, the panel found that the Philadelphia prosecutors who ultimately charged Lynn two years ago and the trial judge who presided over his case had misapplied the law, which did not cover supervisors like Lynn until 2007.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

By Adam Smeltz

Published: Friday, Dec. 27, 2013

The reversed conviction of a former Roman Catholic Church official could be a big win for the defense for three former Penn State University executives accused of shielding pedophile Jerry Sandusky, several attorneys said Friday.

“Certainly, the court’s opinion puts a big hole in the commonwealth’s case” against the ex-administrators, said Donna McClelland, a Pittsburgh trial lawyer and former deputy attorney general.

She said the reversal for Monsignor William Lynn, 62, could weaken felony charges of child endangerment against Tim Curley, Gary Schultz and Graham Spanier, but not their related charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and failure to report.

Lynn was the first U.S. church official convicted for the handling of clergy abuse complaints when a Philadelphia jury found him guilty in June 2012. A Superior Court panel on Thursday unanimously rejected prosecution arguments that Lynn was legally accountable for the welfare of an abused boy in the late 1990s.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

In a surprisingly candid assessment about a much anticipated speech today by Pope Francis, a leading Vatican reporter, John Allen of CNN and the National Catholic Reporter, stated: “Given that a cleanup operation in the Roman Curia was a large part of the mandate Francis received from the cardinals who elected him, and given the fevered speculation in Rome about what further changes might be coming, many observers were anxious to see if Francis would drop some hints in his Saturday morning speech. In the end, there was nothing like that.”

So what else is new? How many cardinals really elected Francis to conduct a “clean up operation”, as opposed to a “preservation operation, to protect cardinals’ power and wealth?

This was unexpected candor, because too many Vatican reporters spend so much time promoting the distracting PR spin about Francis’ “popular nonsense”. Francis’ photo ops and sound bites are appealing, but will not ultimately satisfy. One suspects that Francis and his clique, including Cardinal Sodano, must chuckle often at how easy it has been for Francis to get Catholics to miss noticing Francis’ recurring avoidance of the real challenges the Catholic Church faces, like holding bishops accountable for enabling priest child abusers or worse or treating women equally and with respect.

These challenges may be avoided for now, but they will just get worse by Francis’ benign neglect. Changes are coming, whether the Vatican wants them or not. They will even come sooner than Francis and his clique expect. See, “A New Year’s Wish For Catholic Church Democracy”, at: http://wp.me/P2YEZ3-W7

One is reminded of Pope Pius IX, who tried to meet the pent up demands for reform by an absurd Syllabus of Errors, followed by a self serving declaration of papal infallibility in 1869. Pius IX also hyped Marian devotions, as Francis does so often. Distractions didn’t work for Pius IX and they won’t work for Francis. Most Catholics have had enough and want to return their Church to a consensual structure like the one the Apostles left behind.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The Salvation Army is the main beneficiary of donations of disused clothing items, which are people are led to believe, normally, sold through its thrift shops. The process is meant both to provide cheap clothing, and to yield profits for the organisations other charitable activities. Recycling donated clothing is both very profitable, and very competitive – so much so that many charitable groups have brought in the professionals.

It is not known how the business operates in Australia, because the Salvation Army does not offer up the information, and has no obligation to provide it. However, due to an investigation by the Guardian newspaper, in the U.K. something of the murky world of clothing recycling has been revealed.

Most people assumed, since there was nothing to say otherwise, that all profits returned to the Salvation Army. Not so, apparently, although the Salvation Army accused the Guardian of “selective reporting”. The professionals the U.K. Salvation Army brought in were Kettering Textiles. The involvement with this company goes back over 20 years.

The Salvation Army Trading Company looks after their business interests in the U.K. While they technically have an obligation under British charity laws to get the best value possible, it is not required to put anything to tender. The clothing recycling business was not put to tender, but simply awarded to Kettering, whose 78% major shareholder, Nigel Hanger, just happened to be a member of the board of the Salvation Army Trading Company (SATCoL). Kettering has the exclusive contract to sell the donated clothing.

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ARIZONA
Courthouse News Service

By JAMIE ROSS

PHOENIX (CN) – After raping a teenager, a Catholic youth leader promised he would stop raping girls if she didn’t tell police, so she kept quiet – but he broke his promise and sexually assaulted her friend, his first alleged victim claims in court.

Maraen Foley claims in the lawsuit that Catholic youth leader Brandon Eckerson forcibly raped her two days before Christmas in 2012. She was 18.

Eckerson “convinced plaintiff not to say anything further to anyone about his sexual exploitation of her; in exchange he promised to never again sexually assault anyone. It was understood that if plaintiff discovered he violated this sworn promise she would go to the police,” Foley claims in the complaint in Maricopa County Court.

She says he broke that promise: that in June this year she learned that he had recently sexually assaulted another girl in the program, so she went to police.

She claims in the lawsuit that Eckerson’s bosses at the highest level of the Diocese knew of the rape but did not report it to law enforcement because Vatican policy threatened them with excommunication if they did.

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ARIZONA
The Raw Story

By Scott Kaufman
Friday, December 27, 2013

A Catholic youth leader who promised a teenager he had raped that he would never rape again if she didn’t report him to police was reported to police by his victim after he sexually assaulted her best friend.

In a complaint filed by Marain Foley against Brandon Eckerson, she claims that Eckerson forcibly raped her two days before Christmas in 2012. However, he convinced her “not to say anything further to anyone about his sexual exploitation of her; in exchange he promised to never again sexually assault anyone. It was understood that if plaintiff discovered he violated this sworn promise she would go to the police.”

According to complaint, the extent of Eckerson’s inappropriate behavior extended beyond sexual assault. As leader of a Catholic youth group, Foley alleges, Eckerson talked to her about “her life, seeking intimate details, including dating and sexual relationship,” and that youth group meetings were fraught with “permissive sexual dialogue, contact, spanking, slapping, gropings and ridicule.”

She also claims that Eckerson brought the group of minors to bars and restaurants in which they were illegally served alcohol, and that he frequently purchased alcohol for the group and consumed it with them during meetings.

She is also suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix; its Bishop, Thomas Olmsted; and the Reverend Patrick Robertson, who was the nominal supervisor of the youth group Eckerson ran, because she claims that after she told her doctor about the rape, “in compliance with state law [he] sent notice to Blessed Sacrament Parish, which circulated an email on the subject.” The complaint alleges that the church “knew that Brandon Eckerson was a danger,” “shared that concern with other members of Blessed Sacrament Parish and the Phoenix Diocese,” but never went to the police.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON DECEMBER 28, 2013

Victims to hand fliers out to church-goers
It urges those who “saw, suspected or suffered” crimes to speak up
They beg prosecutor to appeal
To Archbishop Chaput “stop stonewalling prosecutors”

WHAT
As parishioners leave mass, clergy sex abuse victims and supporters will hand out fliers urging them to

–ask their loved ones if they were hurt by Philadelphia Catholic clerics, and
–contact prosecutors urging them to appeal Lynn’s conviction being overturned.

They will also

–urge Philly Catholic officials to keep Msgr. Lynn from public ministry and any position of power
–beg every person who saw, suspected and suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups in the Philadelphia Archdiocese (especially current and ex-Catholic employees) to come forward, call police, protect others and start healing

WHEN
Sunday, December 29 at 11:45 a.m.

WHERE
Outside the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul, 18th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway, in Philly

WHO
Three –four members of a support group for victims of clergy abuse called SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)

WHY

On Thursday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned Monsignor William Lynn’s conviction for child endangerment. This ruling gives corrupt Catholic officials encouragement to continue deceiving police, stonewalling prosecutors, ignoring victims, destroying evidence, fabricating alibis, hiding crimes, and protecting pedophiles.

[Associated Press]

The group believes that literally thousands of U.S. Catholic officials have done precisely what Msgr. Lynn did and were never even charged or exposed, much less convicted. They believe that hundreds or thousands of chancery officials across the globe are doing – right now – exactly what Msgr. Lynn did for years.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

SWEDEN
The Local

A priest in southern Sweden has been prosecuted on a charge of sexual molestation after sending a text to a teenage boy saying that he wanted to have sex with him.

The priest, who was based in Kalmar county, has admitted that he sent the sex text and that it was wrong but has denied the charge of sexual molestation.

“I hope that we end up in bed and have sex. As I am gay and you are young and good looking,” the priest wrote in the text which was sent in September.

Following the incident the priest has since been relieved of his duties entirely within the priesthood by the church.

The priest and the boy had got to know each other at a confirmation camp and remained in contact afterwards. At first the contact was friendly but relations came to an abrupt end when the boy received a text from the priest saying he wanted to have sex.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — After a year that included the historic resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and a series of celebrated innovations by Pope Francis, it is hard to imagine 2014 at the Vatican could be nearly as eventful. Of course, the biggest stories are likely to be those that come by surprise, but in the meantime, here are developments bound to loom large in Vatican news over the coming year:

— New Cardinals: Pope Francis is scheduled to create new cardinals Feb. 22. By that time, no more than 106 members of the College of Cardinals will be under the age of 80 and thus eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope. Under rules established by Pope Paul VI, the college should not have more than 120 such members, though subsequent popes have occasionally exceeded that number. So Pope Francis can be expected to name at least 14 new cardinal electors.

The election of the first Latin American pope has raised expectations of greater geographical diversity among cardinal electors, so the new slate might prove relatively heavy on names from statistically underrepresented regions, especially Latin America and Africa.

— Vatican reform: The eight-member Council of Cardinals that Pope Francis formed to advise him on governance of the universal church and reform of the Vatican bureaucracy has already joined him for two rounds of meetings at the Vatican and will do so again in February. The body is working on the first major overhaul of the Roman Curia, the church’s central administration at the Vatican, since 1988.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

TENNESSEE
WMC-TV

[with video[

MEMPHIS, TN –
(WMC-TV) – A Memphis COGIC pastor will plead guilty to a sexual battery charge and his church will shut down, according to his attorney.

Michael Bryant, pastor at Hour of Restoration COGIC in Memphis, was in general sessions court Thursday for what was supposed to be a bond reduction hearing.

Instead, defense attorney Art Horne says he and the prosecution worked out a plea agreement in a “criminal information” that will be brought before a judge in criminal court.

“The case is settled,” said Bryant’s defense attorney, Art Horne. “He’s pleading guilty to sexual battery by an authority figure and the sentence will be six years at 30 percent. And we’ll ask for probation.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

TENNESSEE
Houston Chronicle

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A defense lawyer says a Memphis pastor is pleading guilty to sexual battery of a teenage girl and his church will shut down.

Attorney Art Horne tells WMC-TV (http://bit.ly/1edRliS ) that he and prosecutors have worked out a plea agreement for Michael Bryant, pastor at Hour of Restoration Church of God in Christ in Memphis.

Horne says Bryant is pleading guilty to sexual battery by an authority figure and the sentence will be six years.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MEXICO
NSS Oaxaca

Gerardo Silvestre Hernández está acusado de abusar de al menos 45 niños indígenas de Oaxaca.

México.- El sacerdote, Gerardo Silvestre Hernández, fue encarcelado luego de ser hallado culpable de abusar de al menos 45 niños indígenas de Oaxaca.

El encarcelamiento se dio tras casi ocho años después de que las primeras denuncias se hicieran públicas y más de tres años de la presentación de pruebas y testimonios comprobables.

Según testimonios, el arzobispo José Luis Chávez Botello minimizó los hechos y permitió que el cura continuara ejerciendo durante los últimos tres años hasta que el pasado 27 de noviembre tuvo que suspenderlo de su ministerio al hacerse pública una denuncia que hizo un padre de familia, cuyo hijo de 9 años había sido acólito de la parroquia donde oficiaba Silvestre Hernández.

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MEXICO
Vanguardia

Ciudad de México. En su columna “Astillero” de este viernes, publicada en el diario La Jornada, el periodista Julio Hernández López denuncia que el Arzobispo de la diócesis de Antequera, José Luis Chávez Botello, protegió al sacerdote señalado e incluso hostigó y amenazó a los religiosos que se atrevieron a denunciarlo, y permitió que Silvestre Hernández ejerciera por más de tres años.

El 22 de diciembre de este mes, medios locales publicaron la reacción del Arzobispo ante la orden de aprehensión girada por el Juez Séptimo de lo Penal, acusado de corrupción de menores de edad y abuso sexual en agravio de sus acólitos en la parroquia de Villa Alta, región de la Sierra Norte de Oaxaca.

Chávez Botello atinó a decir: “La Iglesia católica nunca ha entorpecido, al contrario siempre facilitará que se cumpla con la ley; nosotros no estamos interviniendo ni hemos intervenido”, publicó el periódico local E-Oaxaca.

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MEXICO
La Jornada

Julio Hernández López

Ha sido encarcelado el sacerdote Gerardo Silvestre Hernández, casi ocho años después de que comenzó a abusar de niños indígenas en Oaxaca (cuando menos 45 casos conocidos), y a cuatro años y medio de que el tema fuera expuesto y abundantemente demostrado ante el arzobispo José Luis Chávez Botello (quien redobló la protección a ese depredador sexual e intensificó el hostigamiento y castigo contra los religiosos denunciantes, nueve párrocos y un diácono).

El pasado 22, en reunión de temporada con periodistas oaxaqueños, el arzobispo Chávez Botello hubo de responder a preguntas sobre la orden de aprehensión girada por el juzgado séptimo de lo penal en la entidad y cumplida por la policía del gobierno de Gabino Cué, según notas publicadas en algunos diarios locales. Durante años, el jefe religioso regional había defendido con enjundia al sacerdote acusado de abusar de niños y jóvenes de zonas indígenas de Oaxaca. Chávez Botello no aceptaba ningún cargo contra el cura Silvestre Hernández, quien más de una vez había asegurado que tenía una gran cercanía personal con el arzobispo. Ahora, frente a acciones de la justicia civil que encontró indicios de lo que él nunca logró ver, a pesar de que se le hicieron llegar detallados testimonios y pruebas, el mismo Chávez Botello aseguró que la Iglesia católica no ha entorpecido la aplicación de la ley en cuanto a Silvestre Hernández y que, en todo caso, facilitaría que hubiera sanciones justicieras contra quien las mereciera (http://bit.ly/1ijFrtc).

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MEXICO
Diario del Morelos

[Summary: Oaxaca -. Priest Gerardo Silvestre Hernández was accused of sexual abuse of at least 45 indigenous children eight years ago but was finally imprisoned on Dec. 22. According to journalist Julio Hernandez Lopez, writing in his Friday column in La Jornada, said the archbishop of the Antequera diocese, Jose Luis Chavez Botello, protected the pederast priest and harassed and threatened those who dared to denounce. The actions by the archbishop, according to Lopez, allowed the priest to abuse minors for more than three years.]

Oaxaca.- Gerardo Silvestre Hernández fue acusado del abuso sexual de por los menos 45 niños indígenas hace ocho años, sin embargo hasta el 22 de diciembre de este año, el sacerdote de Oaxaca fue encarcelado.

El periodista Julio Hernández López publicó este viernes en su columna “Astillero” del diario La Jornada, que el Arzobispo de la diócesis de Antequera, José Luis Chávez Botello, protegió al sacerdote pederasta, mientras hostigaba y amenazaba a los religiosos que se atrevieron a denunciarlo, lo que permitió a Silvestre Hernández ejercer su abuso por más de tres años.

El 22 de diciembre, medios locales publicaron la reacción del Arzobispo frente a la orden de aprehensión girada por el Juez Séptimo de lo Penal, en contra del sacerdote por los cargos de corrupción de menores y abuso sexual que padecieron los acólitos de la parroquia de Villa Alta en la región de la Sierra Norte de Oaxaca.

El Arzobispo aseguró que la Iglesia católica “nunca ha entorpecido, al contrario siempre facilitará que se cumpla con la ley”, resaltando categóricamente que ellos no habían intervenido.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

DAVID GAMBACORTA, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER GAMBACD@PHILLYNEWS.COM, 215-854-5994
POSTED: Sunday, December 29, 2013

A COMMON PLEAS judge who once excoriated Monsignor William Lynn for shielding “monsters in clerical garb” will now decide if he’ll be able to get out of prison.

Judge M. Teresa Sarmina will preside Monday over a bail hearing for Lynn, who on Thursday learned that the Superior Court of Pennsylvania had overturned his 2012 conviction on a felony child-endangerment charge.

The three-judge appeals panel sided with Lynn’s lawyers, who argued that the state child-endangerment law that was in effect while Lynn served as the secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia applied only to parents and guardians of children.

Thomas Bergstrom, one of Lynn’s attorneys, had hoped that Lynn, 62, would be released from a state prison in Wayne County within a day or two.

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UNITED STATES
Times-Herald

According to one study, approximately 546,000 children in the United States were sexually abused last year. According to another, 16 percent of youths 14-17 years old are sexually abused in any given year in the United States.

A third study says that over the course of their school careers, nearly 10 percent of K-12 students will be the victim of some form of sexual abuse at school, with one in 10 of those involving a teacher or school employee. If you draw the numbers out, that means roughly 4.5 million students currently in grade or high school have been abused by an educator, or 375,000 annually.

Unfortunately, there has never been a widespread, authoritative analysis of the issue of child sexual abuse in the United States to help shine light on the instances of exactly where, when, how often and by whom this scourge on civilized society continues to take place.

But if the scores of smaller studies indicate one thing clearly, it’s that it does continue to take place — in schools, homes, churches, day cares, and anywhere else adults have easy access to children — at an alarming rate.

The Catholic Church was rightly called on the issue of child sexual abuse when the Boston Globe first revealed the scope of the problem in 2002: A frightening 4,400 priests — 4 percent — had been accused of abusing a minor in a 52-year span between 1950 and 2002, with the vast majority of those cases between 1960-80. While the Catholic Church should be held to a higher standard in society, given the trust it once possessed and especially when dioceses were accused of hiding or ignoring abuse, 4 percent is still less than half the rate at which teachers — even today — are accused of abusing their students.

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TENNESSEE
MemphisRap

Memphis COGIC Pastor Arrested on Sexual Abuse of 16-Yr-Old Family Member, Church Members Knew About It and Prayed For Him!

A Memphis COGIC pastor has been arrested and charged with sexual battery for molesting a 16 year-old family member for years and the secret was even kept by fellow church members.

Michael Bryant, 48, was accused of sneaking in the bedroom of the teen-girl while her mother was asleep or was at work.

Bryant would expose himself and fondle the victim and he did it for the last two years while being the pastor of Hour of Restoration COGIC in Hickory Hill.

Michael Bryant was formerly an elder at Greater Community Temple COGIC.

Apparently, the victim revealed Bryant’s sexual abuse to other church and family members, who then kept the abuse a secret while choosing to pray for their pastor instead of turning him in to the police.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Hamilton Spectator (Canada)

By Maryclaire Dale
PHILADELPHIA Lawyers for a Roman Catholic church official will demand his immediate release from prison Monday after an appeals court overturned his conviction in a novel priest-abuse case aimed squarely at the church hierarchy in Philadelphia.

Monsignor William Lynn, 62, is the first Catholic official ever prosecuted over his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints. He has served 18 months of the three- to six-year sentence handed down by a judge who said he helped predators remain in ministry, endangering new victims.

But the Superior Court threw out the conviction Thursday, ruling that the state’s child-endangerment law did not apply in the late 1990s to church supervisors like Lynn. The Superior Court said the case never should have been filed.

“The laws at that time were inadequate to deal with this kind of problem. And I think that the judge and the prosecutor stretched the law, trying to find some way to punish somebody,” Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit theologian and senior analyst with the National Catholic Reporter, said Friday. “They stretched the law too far, in the opinion of the appeals court.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

The state Superior Court has reversed the conviction of Msgr. William J. Lynn, saying he never should have been charged in the first place with the crime of endangering the welfare of a child.

But whether Lynn gets out of jail now is up to Judge M. Teresa Sarmina, the trial court judge who put Lynn away, and whose prior rulings in the case have been described by a panel of three Superior Court judges as “fundamentally flawed.”

At 10 a.m. Monday, Judge Sarmina will convene a bail hearing to determine whether Msgr. Lynn gets out of jail. The hearing will be held in Courtroom 507 of the Criminal Justice Center. Several members of District Attorney Seth Williams’ office are expected to attend, and argue that the monsignor deserves to stay in jail while the D.A. appeals the Superior Court opinion.

For Msgr. Lynn’s lawyer, Thomas A. Bergstrom, this doesn’t make much sense.

“The Superior Court has said he [Lynn] should be discharged forthwith, so I don’t think that requires any interpretation,” Bergstrom said. “Seems to me she [Judge Sarmina] has to do exactly what they’ve ordered,” Bergstrom said, referring to the panel of three Superior Court judges who reversed Lynn’s conviction.

In the past, however, Judge Sarmina, has not exactly been partial, or merciful, when it comes to Msgr. Lynn.

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MINNESOTA
Legal Examiner

Posted by Mike Bryant
December 26, 2013

Last week was a step in the right direction with the release of the Minneapolis/St Paul Archdiocese List , however there is a lot more information needed. The Archdiocese needs to come clean with the truth and give Zero Tolerance, meaning:

– They need to be open and disclose information voluntarily. The press release suggested that they were releasing the list on their own. Actually, it was the order of Judge John B. Van de North Jr.. The Church fought the release each time a request has been made.

– The real concern needs to be about the survivors. The day before the list disclosure emails and letters were sent out to 92 parishes warning them that they were churches where these pedophiles had been placed. It is an example of how backwards the information has come out. These churches in many cases should have never had these placements to begin with.

– The lists need to be updated. It is clear that there are names that are missing or potentially intentionally not being included. If there is a bankruptcy, you can be assured that they will have all of the names so that they are protecting their financing. It is another place where they are backwards in who should be protected.

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MINNESOTA
Monticello Times

By Tim Hennagir
December 26, 2013

Harry Walsh, former pastor and music director of St. Henry Catholic Church in Monticello, has denied a list of claims made against him in a recent news report.

Walsh provided an emailed statement to the Monticello Times last Friday (Dec. 20) that stated the following: “I am saddened by the Dec.19, 2013, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) report. I am sad that facts are brushed aside and skewed to advance a narrative unrelated to me, and sad that sensationalism trivializes the real and important work that I do. Any allegations of abuse by me are unfounded.”

Walsh added: “I am not going to address every misstatement from the MPR report and [a] subsequent Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis press release, but I do want to address the two allegations and my decision to seek laicization [removal of rights to exercise the functions of an ordained ministry.]”

While Walsh’s name wasn’t on a recently released list of priests credibly accused of sexually abusing minors, MPR presented church documents that contained information he had been accused in the 1990s of molesting a 15-year-old girl in Detroit in the mid-1960s and a 12-year-old altar boy in in South St. Paul the early 1980s. The archdiocese contributed to a financial settlement for the girl in 1996, MPR reported in its investigative story, adding two archbishops allowed him to continue working in parishes until the fall of 2011.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Monsignor Lynn’s trial court reversal, likely to be appealed further, turned on a narrow technical interpretation of a new statute. Importantly, the appellate court did not dispute the lower court’s substantial evidence about Lynn’s shameful role in shuffling several dozen predatory priests from parish to parish. Indeed, as reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer recently, the three appellate judge court indicated: “… We cannot dispute that the Commonwealth [ Philly prosecutors] presented more than adequate evidence to sufficiently demonstrate that [Lynn] prioritized the Archdiocese’s reputation over the safety of potential victims of sexually abusive priests and, by inference, that the same prioritization dominated [Lynn’s] handling of [an abusive priest], … “, the ruling said.

Paradoxically, Lynn’s trial reversal, and the current publicity it is generating, are helping the cause of curtailing priest abuse. They also keep the pressure on Pope Francis to address the issue of bishop accountability directly and transparently, after nine months mainly of avoiding it.

Once again, the inadequate US state law criminal process for prosecuting the US Catholic hierarchy has failed children. Pennsylvania state officials are too often restricted by narrow laws pushed often by the Pennsylvania Catholic bishops’ very influential and well funded lobbyists. President Obama needs to follow Australia’s effective lead now, and set up a US national commission to investigate institututional child sexual abuse and to propose new national legislation. For more, see, “A New Year’s Wish For a Catholic Church Democracy”, at: http://wp.me/P2YEZ3-W7 .

Incidentally, Fr. Kevin McDonough, the priest brother of President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, reportedly appears now potentially to be facing similar cover-up allegations in Minneapolis (USA). Significantly, the reported Minneapolis allegations in a couple of the reported cases involve the Vatican and relate also to Federal crimes, which may soon require Federal prosecutors, if they are not involved already. This may get sticky for the Obama Administration. Will Obama’s conservative opposition risk jeopardizing their current “political alliance” with US bishops and press Obama on any of the Minneapolis cases? Time should soon tell.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Religion News Service

David Gibson | Dec 27, 2013

(RNS) This week’s court decision that freed a senior cleric in Philadelphia who had been jailed for shielding an abusive priest was a symbolic setback for victims’ advocates but one with a substantial, and discouraging, message for their cause: None of the churchmen implicated in cover-ups during the worst decades of abuse will likely ever face charges.

The June 2012 conviction of Monsignor William Lynn was seen as a landmark verdict because until then no one in the upper levels of the Catholic Church had ever faced a trial or been found guilty for shielding molesters.

Lynn, who oversaw clergy and fielded abuse complaints for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004, was sentenced to three to six years on one count of child endangerment. After serving 18 months in prison, Lynn was expected to be released from prison soon.

During the past few decades, a number of abusers have been convicted, and many defrocked. But public outrage was largely directed against the bishops and senior church officials like Lynn who, as the appeals court noted in its ruling on Thursday (Dec. 26), “prioritized the archdiocese’s reputation over the safety of potential victims of sexually abusive priests.”

But the appeals ruling also said that Lynn’s behavior, while outrageous to much of the Catholic faithful and the wider public, did not violate the child welfare law in place at the time of the abuse. …

Nicholas Cafardi, a canon and civil lawyer at the Duquesne Law School in Pittsburgh and former head of the Catholic bishops’ national review board on clergy abuse, said Francis must broaden the mandate of the commission to include his brother bishops.

“We have to insist that there be repercussions for any bishop who would re-assign or cover-up for a sexually abusive priest,” Cafardi wrote in an email. “The church will never have closure on this issue unless the larger problem of hierarchical complicity is dealt with.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Gloucester Citizen

THOUSANDS of church volunteers could be pushed into leaving their roles because of “overzealous” criminal record checks.

Figures show the Church of England carried out 58,000 such checks in the last 12 months alone before allowing people to work in parishes or take office roles.

In 2010, Annabel Hayter quit her role as chairman of the Gloucester Cathedral Flower Guild after being told she and her team would have to undergo the vetting process.

She had minimal contact with children, but church authorities were concerned that she and her fellow flower arrangers shared a lavatory with choirboys.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

The Church of England has carried out tens of thousands of criminal record checks on volunteers in a move that critics claim risks driving away bell ringers and florists

By Graeme Paton 26 Dec 2013

Volunteer bell ringers, florists and organists risk being pushed out the Church of England because of a regime of “overzealous” criminal record checks, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been warned.

Figures obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that at least 58,000 people have been vetted by the Church in the last 12 months alone before being allowed to work in parishes or take back office roles.

More than 80 per cent of the checks carried out by individual dioceses were on volunteers, it emerged.
In many cases, vetting procedures are used in relation to adults working with children in Sunday schools and church crèches – a target of the government’s Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

EDITORIAL

The Pennsylvania Superior Court has dismissed the child endangerment conviction of Philadelphia’s Monsignor William Lynn.

The Court’s position is that Monsignor Lynn didn’t supervise the child or children who were sexually abused by a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and it doesn’t think that supervising the welfare of children is a standard that should hold in this case. The Court said it did not believe sufficient evidence was presented to convict Monsignor Lynn for child endangerment.

We hope the Church doesn’t take comfort in this ruling – particularly when it celebrates the Feast of the Innocents on December 28.

It was a dangerous time to be a child 2000 years ago in Herod’s reign if you were two years old or younger. Didn’t matter if the solider who drew his sword to kill you knew you or not. You were just as dead.

Time doesn’t correct everything.

It’s still a dangerous time to be a child.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CatholicPhilly

BY MATTHEW GAMBINO

The highest ranking official of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia convicted of a crime in connection with the sexual abuse scandal of recent years may soon walk free from prison.

A three-judge panel of the Pennsylvania Superior Court reversed the conviction of Msgr. William Lynn Dec. 26. The former secretary for clergy of the archdiocese was convicted on one count of endangering the welfare of a child in June 2012.

The priest has spent the past 18 months, almost to the day, in Waymart state prison in Northeastern Pennsylvania, where he was serving a three-to-six year term.

“The decision by the Superior Court to overturn this conviction,” read a statement by the Philadelphia Archdiocese, “does not and will not alter the Church’s commitment to assist and support the survivors of sexual abuse on their journey toward healing or our dedicated efforts to ensure that all young people in our care are safe.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The American Conservative

By ROD DREHER • December 27, 2013

Last year, when a Pennsylvania jury convicted Msgr William Lynn of the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia to prison for his role in a child sex abuse cover-up, reader Mike Ehling wrote to me:

I’m an ex-Catholic, and I have no desire to defend a paternalistic hierarchy, and Lynn is no one I would ever want to hire as a personnel director, but I have a very real concern that….

(1) Judge Sarmina was just wa-a-ay too pro-prosecution.

(2) Lynn was being held to the standards of 2012 for his actions from 1992 to 2004, at a time when “one-strike” policies were simply not that prevalent and rehabilitation was seen as more of an option.

(3) Lynn was not a “mandatory reporter” under Pennsylvania law (blame the Pennsylvania legislature for this if you like), so he had no legal obligation (whatever moral obligation you might assert) to report suspected instances of child abuse to the police.

(4) Lynn had (in my view) the right to give a suspected priest the benefit of the doubt and aim for treatment rather than prosecution. Note that I’m not saying Lynn should have done this, only that I don’t think that his having done so is so outrageous as to justify criminal (as opposed to civil monetary) liability.

The real problem, I think, is that clergy in general make lousy personnel directors. Clergy are trained in a “helping” profession, while personnel directors often find themselves in the “enforcement” role. My reading of this case is that Lynn was a well-meaning priest who was trying to do right but who was in wa-a-ay over his head. Moreover, note that Cardinal Bevilacqua was not just Lynn’s boss and an important member of the hierarchy but that he was also a civil lawyer, with a degree from St. John’s University Law School in Queens, New York, which gives added emphasis to directions he gave to Lynn.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
City of Angels

Kay Ebeling

The Philadelphia appeals court ruling yesterday did NOT say Monsignor William Lynn was innocent, it ruled only that the law did not cover him.

Lynn’s attorneys won this appeal saying Pennsylvania’s child-endangerment law at the time of the crimes applied only to parents and caregivers, not to “supervisors” such as the Monsignor. The reversal “turned on disputed interpretations of Pennsylvania’s former child welfare law,” as described in the New York Times.

There is no denial of Monsignor Lynn’s guilt here, only attorneys finding a way once again to twist the Law to their client’s interest, with enough cash to pursue it until they win.

So as Donoho’ of the Catholic League and others jump in and call this a victory for a wrongfully accused priest, let’s take a minute to look at the whole truth.

Since his attorneys say he was not a caregiver, are they then arguing that he did not care? Because we all know that is the truth here.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Charles Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com

A Roman Catholic priest lodged in a northeastern Pennsylvania prison cell may just have hit the legal equivalent of a home run for former Penn State President Graham Spanier and two of his former top aides at the university.

That’s because, some legal experts say, Pennsylvania Superior Court’s reversal Thursday of Monsignor William Lynn’s 2012 child endangerment conviction may well knock out similar charges lodged against Spanier, his athletic director, Tim Curley, and his vice president for business and finance Gary Schultz.

“There are huge implications for the Penn State prosecution from this case,” said Wes Oliver, a professor at the Duquesne University School of Law who has closely watched the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

“This could mean that some of the most serious charges (against Spanier, Curley and Schultz) are gone,” Oliver said.

The three former Penn State administrators face trial in Harrisburg next year on charges that they lied to state investigators about what they knew of child sex abuse allegations against Sandusky, then a beloved Penn State football hero, and what they did in response.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Vatican Insider

The Roman Catholic Church official had been accused of covering up child abuse committed by priests. The judge who sentenced Lynn in 2012, said he had “enabled monsters in clerical garb … to destroy the souls of children”

VATICAN INSIDER STAFF
ROME

Mgr. William Lynn, the Roman Catholic Church official who was accused of covering up priest-abuse cases has had his conviction overturned by Philadelphia’s court of appeal. He is being released from prison after being sentenced to 3 to 6 years in prison back in July 2012.

Mgr. Lynn had been secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004, was in charge of assigning priests to the various parishes and investigating sex abuse claims. The US press said he had been accused of allowing a priest suspected of abusing minors to continue working with children.

According to the judge who sentenced Mgr. Lynn in 2012, the Church official had “enabled monsters in clerical garb … to destroy the souls of children.” But the appeal court ruled that “the evidence was insufficient to demonstrate that [Lynn] acted with the ‘intent of promoting or facilitating'” the offence.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

ALLISON STEELE, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
POSTED: Friday, December 27, 2013

The Philadelphia judge who sentenced Msgr. William J. Lynn to three to six years in prison for his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints is now being asked to free him.

Lawyers for Lynn, whose 2012 conviction was overturned this week by a Superior Court panel, have filed a motion to Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina to have Lynn immediately released on bail, lead lawyer Thomas A. Bergstrom said Friday.

Sarmina is expected to review Lynn’s bail conditions and determine if she wants a hearing on the matter, Bergstrom said.

The judge will likely decide next week.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
ABC News

By MARYCLAIRE DALE Associated Press

A bail hearing has been set Monday for a Roman Catholic church official after his child-endangerment conviction was overturned.

Monsignor William Lynn won’t be at the hearing in Philadelphia. He remains in custody at a state prison in northeast Pennsylvania.

The 62-year-old Lynn is the first church official ever prosecuted over his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints. Lynn has served 18 months of the 3- to 6-year sentence.

But the Superior Court threw out his conviction Thursday, saying the law did not apply in the late 1990s to church supervisors like Lynn.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WNPV

A Superior Court Panel’s ruling that reverses the conviction of Monsignor William Lynn on charges that he sent predator priests to parishes in the Diocese of Philadelphia, where they were again in contact with children, is met with outrage. Karen Polesir is the Spokesperson for the Philadelphia region of The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests or Snap.

“He knew what he was doing. He claimed he was doing it because he was told to do it. He’s a grownup and he’s supposed to be an ethical man, so when you are told to put children in harms way, you can say no.”

Polesir is asking people to protest the decision and urges Philadelphia D.A. Seth Williams to appeal the decision. Lynn’s attorney, Thomas Bergstrom, maintains that an injustice occurred when Lynn was convicted. Bergstrom says, Lynn is an innocent man. Lynn served 18 months of a 3 to 6 year prison term.

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PHILADLEPHIA (PA)
Catholic Online

PHILADELPHIA, PA (Catholic Online) – Last year, Monsignor William Lynn went to prison for covering up cases of priests in his charge who molested children. Instead of reporting those priests to authorities, he simply transferred them to other parishes where they went on to abuse other children.

Lynn, 62, was sentenced to three to six years in prison for the conviction.

However, a three-judge Superior Court panel has overturned his conviction saying that under the law, he could not be held responsible for what happened to the abused children.

The judges are right, therefore Monsignor Lynn will be released, possibly as early as today.

Thomas Bergstrom, Lynn’s attorney, told the media following the ruling, “He’s been in prison 18 months for a crime he didn’t commit and couldn’t commit under the law. It’s incredible what happened to this man.”

But is it really?

When Monsignor Lynn served as Secretary of the Clergy from 1992 to 2004, he knowingly reassigned pedophile priests to several different parishes in Philadelphia. He did the wrong thing and children paid the price. Although Lynn may not be legally culpable for what happened, he is certainly morally responsible. As faithful Catholics, we must hold our Church fathers to a higher standard of morality because the trust we have in them is virtually absolute and they are responsible for the most important aspect of our lives, which is our spiritual well-being. We trust these men with our children and our souls.

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AUSTRALIA
The Dallas Morning News

By Reese Dunklin
rdunklin@dallasnews.com
9:45 am on December 27, 2013

A notorious figure from our 2004-2005 series about the Catholic Church’s global transfer of sexually abusive priests has admitted to molesting even more children.

Australian prosecutors had filed 34 criminal charges against Frank Klep. That number was cut to 12 in a guilty plea this month, according to news reports. The 70-year-old now awaits an April pre-sentencing hearing in Melbourne.

During the recent court hearing, Klep said only one word.

“Guilty.”

This is Klep’s third time through Australia’s justice system. The latest charges arose from a parliamentary inquiry last year and involve 14 now-grown boys.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Pilot

PHILADELPHIA (CNS) — A panel of judges for a Pennsylvania Superior Court reversed the decision on a priest’s conviction in handling a clerical abuse case and ordered his release from prison.

The decision, announced Dec. 26, involves Msgr. William Lynn, former secretary for clergy in the Philadelphia Archdiocese. Msgr. Lynn has served 18 months of a 2012 prison sentence of three to six years after being found guilty of endangering the welfare of a child, a felony.

Prosecutors had argued that the priest had reassigned abusive priests to new parishes in the Philadelphia Archdiocese in his diocesan role as clergy secretary. However, Msgr. Lynn’s attorneys argued that Pennsylvania’s child-endangerment law at the time applied only to parents and caregivers, not to supervisors, which was Msgr. Lynn’s role.

Prosecutors could appeal the Superior Court panel’s decision or ask the full Superior Court to rehear the case.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Eleven men subjected to years of child abuse by two priests claim they have never received the therapy promised by the Church.

Lawrence Grech, speaking on behalf of the victims, told Times of Malta he had never been approached by the Church.

When contacted, a Curia spokesman denied Mr Grech’s claims. He insisted the men had all been contacted by the Missionary Society of St Paul in writing back in 2011. Since then, he added, some had even received counselling services.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the decision by a Pennsylvania appeals court to overturn the conviction of Msgr. William Lynn:

The guilty parties that worked overtime to convict an innocent man—they include attorneys, judges, newspapers, professional “victims’ groups,” activists, TV talking heads—have been disgraced. This is a monumental win for justice, and a tremendous setback for anti-Catholic bigots. Their goal is to “get a bishop,” and if that doesn’t work, then they settle for the next in line. They are fundamentally dishonest, and now they have been disabled.

Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham began this witch-hunt—she was authorized to pursue sexual misconduct in all religious communities, but instead she selectively chose to focus exclusively on Catholics—and then she passed the baton to her successor, Seth Williams. All of them knew that Msgr. Lynn did not know, or know of, the drug-addicted, lying, scheming, accuser, Billy Doe. They also knew that laws applied ex post facto (e.g., the 2007 amendment of the 1972 child endangerment statute) would not stand scrutiny on appeal. But none of this mattered.

So how does the Philadelphia Inquirer feel today? It refused $58,000 from the Catholic League for an ad earlier in the year that told the truth about this subject. How does David Clohessy, the vindictive, weeping, professional “victims’ group” head feel? How do rapacious lawyers like Jeffrey Anderson, Rebecca Randles, and Marci Hamilton feel?

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jason Berry | Dec. 27, 2013

Top leaders of Regnum Christi, the lay wing of the Legion of Christ, knew as early as 2006 that Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the scandal-tarnished founder of the order, had a grown daughter, but concealed the information from the members at least three years, NCR has learned.

In exclusive NCR interviews, Elizabeth Kunze, who spent 16 years as a consecrated celibate in Regnum Christi, and Legionary Fr. Peter Byrne, who is leaving the order, denounced rooted secrecy and betrayal in the order and a bungled Vatican reform effort.

Kunze, of Milwaukee, called Regnum Christi a “cult” and said the Vatican 2010 visitation, or investigation of the Legion, “was rigged.”

“I’ve winced for years every time someone challenged [Regnum Christi], saying it was a cult or cult-like,” said Kunze, 47, who works as a bilingual counselor for a Milwaukee Catholic school in a Latino community.

“Even now it is painful for me to consider that description, but a year ago I told someone about the movement” — as Legionaries and Regnum Christi members call the joint effort — “and I said quite plainly it was a cult. I feel ashamed for having been caught up in a cult for so many years. It is not easy to admit, but I finally feel free enough to say what I believe.”

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UNITED STATES
City of Angels

Kay Ebeling

It woke me up, this idea, probably many others have had it already but isn’t it suspicious that our new left wing pope is being guided through the media by a Fox News trollop? This pic from NCR Online of Greg Burke, papal flack, praying for the camera, gives an idea of what more is in store as Fox News extends its fingers into Rome. Below pic is a stream of news stories about it, more to come from me in January.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
OPB

After spending a year and a half in jail, a Philadelphia Roman Catholic priest convicted of child endangerment will go free after a court overturned the 2012 verdict.

NPR’s Jeff Brady says although Monsignor William Lynn, 62, was never accused of abuse himself, he was convicted in 2012 of putting children in danger by moving abusing priests to unwitting parishes. Lynn was an official of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia at the time.

On Thursday, however, a three-judge panel unanimously rejected prosecutors’ arguments that Lynn was legally responsible for the welfare the children allegedly abused by priests under his supervision.

“He’s been in prison 18 months for a crime he didn’t commit and couldn’t commit under the law,” Lynn’s attorney, Thomas Bergstrom, said. “It’s incredible what happened to this man.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Upper Michigans Source

PHILADELPHIA, PA (AP) — Lawyers for a Roman Catholic church official are going to try to get him released as early as this week from a state prison in Pennsylvania — now that an appeals court has reversed his conviction for child endangerment.

The appeals panel is ordering the release of Monsignor William Lynn. But prosecutors are planning to fight the ruling, and resist any move to release him.

Lynn is serving a three-to-six-year prison sentence. He was charged over his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints. He was the first U.S. church official ever charged or convicted for the handling of those complaints. …

Tonight in the Daily Pulse we’re wondering: Do you think Monsignor William Lynn should be released from prison? Yes or no? Why or why not?

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholic Culture

In a unanimous ruling, a Pennsylvania appellate court has overturned the 2012 conviction of Msgr. William Lynn, who served as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s vicar of clergy from 1992 to 2004.

The court found that “the state’s child-endangerment law at the time of Lynn’s conviction applied to parents and caregivers but did not extend to institutional supervisors,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

“When Monsignor Lynn’s sentence was announced last summer, the Archdiocese reemphasized that it has changed dramatically since the events over ten years ago that were at the center of the trial and reaffirmed that dramatic steps have been taken to ensure that all young people in our care find a safe and nurturing environment,” the archdiocese said in a statement. “It also expressed a hope that the nature of the sentence imposed on Monsignor Lynn would be objectively reviewed. That has happened.”

“The decision by the Superior Court to overturn this conviction does not and will not alter the Church’s commitment to assist and support the survivors of sexual abuse on their journey toward healing or our dedicated efforts to ensure that all young people in our care are safe,” the statement continued.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Entorno Inteligente

El Comercio de Perú / BBC . Un tribunal de Pensilvania, en Estados Unidos, revocó la condena de un sacerdote católico encarcelado hace más de un año por acusaciones relacionadas al abuso sexual de niños.

Monseñor William Lynn, que trabajó en la Arquidiócesis hasta 2004, fue condenado por poner en peligro a los menores. Los fiscales sostuvieron que Lynn hizo arreglos para que curas acusados de abusar de niños fueran transferidos a otras parroquias en Filadelfia.

Fue el primer funcionario de la Iglesia Católica estadounidense en ser acusado o condenado por el manejo de las quejas de abuso infantil contra sacerdotes.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Noticias 24

(Caracas, 26 de diciembre. AP).- La declaración de culpabilidad de un clérigo católico de Filadelfia encarcelado más de un año por su manejo de las quejas de abuso sexual cometido por sacerdotes fue sobreseída el jueves y se ordenó su liberación

Al desestimar el histórico caso penal, un panel de tres jueces de la Corte Superior rechazó por unanimidad los argumentos de los fiscales de que monseñor William Lynn, el primer clérigo estadounidense en ser acusado o declarado culpable por el manejo de las quejas de abuso sexual cometido por sacerdotes, supervisaba el bienestar de cualquier niño en particular.

“Ha estado en prisión durante 18 meses por un crimen que no cometió y que no podía cometer ante la ley”, dijo su abogado Thomas Bergstrom. “Es increíble lo que le sucedió a este hombre”.

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UNITED STATES
City of Angels

Kay Ebeling

This pic may be religious to some, but with hundreds of thousands around the world going public that Catholic priests raped us as children, the Vatican should take great pains to avoid releasing images like this where the Pope appears to be nibbling on the Baby Jesus’s thigh while the child looks up in ecstasy. Oh, no, I see, he’s not nibbling the thigh he’s just kissing it. Grotesque.

The photo churned up awful awful memories as soon as I saw it, since I was age five when Father Horne diddled me, and our position and posture was likely very similar to this image. The statue being Baby Jesus just adds to the confusion in the triggers the image musters.

The Vatican has recently revised its PR machine putting a former Fox News exec in charge, and they release this picture?

That they can be so crass as to put the Pope in this position with cameras around him tells me that Catholic Church heirarchy still don’t see the damage they did to us, or the gravity of hundreds of thousands of sex crimes against children unprosecuted. With a wave of a hand to the cameraman, they dismiss the pain of victims all over the world who will see this photo.

Recent papal announcements of a new commission to investigate clergy sex abuse of children is more PR produced by that same Fox News guy, and it successfully distracted American news media from the prosecution being attempted against the Vatican by The Hague at this time. No one in Catholic Church hierarchy has shown an understanding of the epidemic of sex crimes against children they let happen in their parishes. Still, so many people go to their churches. Kinda makes you long for a new planet to live on.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Steve Tawa and Ileana Diaz

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – In a major ruling in the local priest abuse case, an appeals court has dismissed the criminal case against a high-ranking church official in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. It says he was wrongly convicted for his handling of abuse complaints.

Monsignor William Lynn has been behind bars since June of 2012, serving three to six years in prison at Waymart, in northeastern Pennsylvania.

“The superior court has ordered him to be released forthwith,” his defense lawyer, Thomas Bergstrom said.

Bergstrom notes that the unanimous decision from Pennsylvania Superior Court reverses the child-endangerment conviction, saying the statute did not apply to him:

“And that he didn’t commit that crime, and as a matter of law, couldn’t commit that crime. Superior court’s opinion vindicates that position.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

[with video]

A Roman Catholic church official who has been jailed for more than a year for his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints had his conviction reversed and was ordered released Thursday.

In dismissing the landmark criminal case, a three-judge Superior Court panel unanimously rejected prosecutors’ arguments that Monsignor William Lynn, the first U.S. church official ever charged or convicted for the handling of clergy-abuse complaints, supervised the welfare of any particular child.

“It pours salt info the wounds of me and every other survivor out there. Every other survivor,” said Phil Gaughn, who alleges sex abuse at Lynn’s hands.

Gaughn claims he was sexually abused by a priest at a Northeast Philadelphia church by a priest that Monsignor Lynn placed there. Gaughn has a pending civil suit against Lynn and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

“He’s been in prison 18 months for a crime he didn’t commit and couldn’t commit under the law,” said Lynn’s attorney, Thomas Bergstrom. “It’s incredible what happened to this man.”

Lynn, 62, is serving a three- to six-year prison sentence after his child-endangerment conviction last year. His lawyers will try to get him released as early as Thursday from the state prison in Waymart.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Wall Street Journal

[court document]

By Tamara Audi

A landmark criminal conviction of a Roman Catholic monsignor imprisoned for his handling of sexual-abuse allegations was overturned Thursday by a Pennsylvania appeals court.

A three-judge Superior Court panel ordered the release of Msgr. William Lynn, the first U.S. Catholic official ever convicted of a criminal charge related to the alleged coverup of sexual abuse of minors by other priests.

Msgr. Lynn, who served in the Philadelphia Archdiocese as a top aide to its archbishop, could be released as early as this week, his lawyer said. He already has served 18 months of a three-to-six-year sentence after a Pennsylvania jury last year found him guilty of child endangerment for allowing a priest accused of sexual abuse to continue to have contact with children.

In overturning his conviction, the court said it “cannot dispute” that there “was more than adequate evidence” presented at trial showing that Msgr. Lynn “prioritized the Archdiocese’s reputation over the safety of potential victims of sexually abusive priests.”

But, the court said, that wasn’t sufficient to prove that Msgr. Lynn was guilty of child endangerment or had “specific information that [the accused priest] intended or was preparing to molest…any other child.”
“I’m gratified and happy,” said Msgr. Lynn’s lawyer, Thomas Bergstrom, adding that the archdiocese has been supportive of Msgr. Lynn, who hopes to remain with the church “and fulfill some priestly duty” once released.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Zee News (India)

Philadelphia: A Roman Catholic church official sentenced to prison for his handling of priest-abuse cases had his conviction overturned, and may soon be back before a judge for bail.

Monsignor William Lynn had served 18 months of his three- to six-year term for child endangerment before the state Superior Court overturned the felony conviction yesterday.

The three-judge panel unanimously rejected arguments that Lynn, the first US church official ever charged or convicted for the handling of clergy-abuse complaints, was legally responsible for an abused boy’s welfare. Defense lawyers have argued that Lynn, 62, was convicted under a law passed years after he left his post at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

“It was fundamentally unfair from the day it started,” defense lawyer Thomas Bergstrom said. “He’s been in prison 18 months for a crime he didn’t commit and couldn’t commit under the law. It’s incredible what happened to this man.”

Defense lawyers hoped for his immediate release from prison, but the appeals court sent the bail issue back to the trial court. That could put Lynn back before Common Pleas Judge M Teresa Sarmina, who had repeatedly denied defense efforts to have the case dropped before trial.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

[court document]

DAVID GAMBACORTA, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER GAMBACD@PHILLYNEWS.COM, 215-854-5994
POSTED: Friday, December 27, 2013

MONSIGNOR William Lynn received a belated Christmas gift yesterday from the Superior Court of Pennsylvania: a get-out-of-jail-free card.

A three-judge appeals panel overturned Lynn’s 2012 conviction of felony child endangerment for his questionable oversight of Edward Avery, a now-defrocked priest from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia who pleaded guilty in 2012 of sexually assaulting an altar boy in 1998.

Lynn, 62, who served as the archdiocese’s secretary for clergy, has spent the last 18 months behind bars as part of a three- to six-year sentence.

He was the first Roman Catholic Church official in the U.S. to be convicted of a crime connected to abuse allegations against the clergy.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Digital Journal

[court document]

By Yukio Strachan
Dec 26, 2013

Philadelphia – In shocking blow to victims of child sexual abuse and their advocates, a Roman Catholic Church senior official who was found guilty of covering up child sexual abuse for years had his conviction overturned Thursday by a Pennsylvania appeals court.

“[W]e are compelled to reverse Appellant’s judgment of sentence,” John T. Bender, the president judge of the 15-member appellate court, wrote in the 43-page opinion. “And, as there are no other offenses for which he was convicted in this case, Appellant is ordered discharged.”

And with those words, the 2012 landmark criminal conviction against Monsignor William J. Lynn of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, who was found guilty of endangering the welfare of children by assigning a known pedophile priest to a parish where he subsequently raped a child, was dismissed.

“He’s been in prison 18 months for a crime he didn’t commit and couldn’t commit under the law,” said his attorney, Thomas Bergstrom, the Associated Press reported.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WTVR

(CNN) — The first Roman Catholic priest in the United States imprisoned for covering up the crimes of offending priests was ordered to be released Thursday after an appeals court reversed his conviction.

Monsignor William Lynn has been in prison since he was convicted in July 2012. He was convicted of one count of child endangerment and sentenced to three to six years.

Attorney Thomas Bergstrom said Lynn could be released as soon as Friday, depending on paperwork.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said his office likely will appeal the ruling.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

December 26, 2013

By Ben Finley, Allison Steele and Aubrey Whelen / Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA — A state appeals court on Thursday reversed the conviction of Monsignor William J. Lynn, the former Archdiocese of Philadelphia administrator who became the first church official nationwide to be tried for covering up child sex abuse by priests.

In a 43-page opinion, a three-judge Superior Court panel wrote that prosecutors had misapplied Pennsylvania’s child endangerment law by claiming that Monsignor Lynn, as the archdiocese secretary for clergy, was responsible for abuse because he supervised a priest, Edward Avery, when Avery sexually abused an altar boy in the mid-1990s.

The court wrote that the law, as it was written during Monsignor Lynn’s tenure in the 1990s and early 2000s, only held accountable people who directly supervised children.

Monsignor Lynn, 62, has been serving a three- to six-year prison term since his conviction and sentencing last year. His lead lawyer, Thomas A. Bergstrom, said he hoped that the monsignor would be freed in a few days.

“It’s the right result, and it’s the right decision,” Mr. Bergstrom said. “It’s unfortunate that he had to spend 18 months in prison before we got it.”

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said his office likely will appeal the decision. “I am disappointed and strongly disagree with the court’s decision,” he said. …

David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, was disappointed by the decision. He said church officials have “time and time again” used expensive, smart lawyers to escape responsibility for abuses. “I think many, many survivors and betrayed Catholics will feel very sad about this decision,” he said.

Monsignor Lynn’s supporters maintained that he was being made a scapegoat for the church hierarchy, and he consistently maintained that he followed orders. “We can’t have the Salem witch hunts on Catholic priests, like they’ve had in the past,” said Joe Maher of Opus Bono, a network for priests accused of sexual assault. “This will send a message to other prosecutors that you really have to find and hold accountable those that have caused the harm to the victims, and not to those that may have been in authority over those who were abusing.”

As the secretary for clergy under Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua for nearly a dozen years, Monsignor Lynn had responsibilities that included proposing assignments for priests and investigating complaints against them. Prosecutors portrayed him as a powerful gatekeeper who quietly shuffled abusive priests between parishes, misinformed parishioners and worked harder to protect the church’s reputation than he did to protect children.

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By: Madeleine Baran, MPR.org/100.5 FM

When beloved priest Harry Walsh retired two years ago, parishioners of St. Henry’s Catholic Church in Monticello, Minn., decorated a VFW hall with paper shamrocks and musical notes to say goodbye.

They sang, gave speeches and cried. Walsh, then 77, had served as the parish’s music minister for nearly a decade.

“You developed close personal relationships with everybody and that gave us all the ability to trust you with all of our personal lives,” one person wrote on a tribute website for the Irish-born priest. “You have blessed this community immeasurably.”

But Walsh had a secret. He’d been accused of sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl and 12-year-old altar boy decades earlier, resulting in a financial settlement for the girl, according to church documents obtained by MPR News. Nonetheless, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis archbishops Harry Flynn and John Nienstedt allowed him to continue working in parishes until the fall of 2011. And neither bishop called police or warned the public.

More recently, Walsh’s name was not included on a list of 30 “credibly accused” priests released Dec. 5 by the archdiocese.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia

When Monsignor Lynn’s sentence was announced last summer, the Archdiocese reemphasized that it has changed dramatically since the events over ten years ago that were at the center of the trial and reaffirmed that dramatic steps have been taken to ensure that all young people in our care find a safe and nurturing environment. It also expressed a hope that the nature of the sentence imposed on Monsignor Lynn would be objectively reviewed. That has happened.

The decision by the Superior Court to overturn this conviction does not and will not alter the Church’s commitment to assist and support the survivors of sexual abuse on their journey toward healing or our dedicated efforts to ensure that all young people in our care are safe.

Our path forward is to remain vigilant in our efforts now and in the years to come. This path includes providing resources and support to survivors, our commitment to immediately report any allegation of sexual abuse involving a minor to law enforcement, and restoring the trust of the faithful and all those who look to the Church as a beacon of God’s promise and love. The reputation of the Church can only be rebuilt through transparency, honesty and a fulfillment of our responsibility to the young people in our care and the victims and survivors who need our support.

We recognize that today’s news is especially difficult for survivors and their families. We profoundly regret their pain.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Boston Globe

By Steven Yaccino | NEW YORK TIMES DECEMBER 27, 2013

NEW YORK — A Pennsylvania appeals court on Thursday overturned the child-endangerment conviction of a Roman Catholic official, upending a landmark court case that had found a senior church member guilty of covering up sexual abuses by priests under his supervision.

The unanimous decision by the Superior Court in Pennsylvania dismissed the criminal case against Monsignor William J. Lynn, who had been sentenced to three to six years.

In the ruling, state Superior Court judges said there was not sufficient evidence to prove that Lynn, 62, had intended to “promote or facilitate” acts of child endangerment, and they ordered his release from prison.

The Philadelphia district attorney, R. Seth Williams, said Thursday that he strongly disagreed with the decision and planned to appeal. ‘‘Because we will be appealing, the conviction still stands for now, and the defendant cannot be lawfully released until the end of the process,’’ Williams said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Courier-Post

[court document]

Written by
Maryclaire Dale
Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic church official jailed for more than a year for his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints had his landmark conviction reversed and was ordered released Thursday.

A three-judge Superior Court panel unanimously rejected prosecution arguments that Monsignor William Lynn, the first U.S. church official ever charged or convicted for the handling of clergy-abuse complaints, was legally responsible for an abused boy’s welfare in the late 1990s.

“He’s been in prison 18 months for a crime he didn’t commit and couldn’t commit under the law,” said his attorney, Thomas Bergstrom. “It’s incredible what happened to this man.”

Lynn, 62, is serving a three-to-six-year prison sentence after his child-endangerment conviction last year. His lawyers hoped for his immediate release Thursday from the state prison in Waymart, Pa., but the appeals court denied the request, instead sending the bail issue back to the trial court.

Prosecutors vowed to oppose bail and to challenge the 43-page opinion.

“Because we will be appealing, the conviction still stands for now, and the defendant cannot be lawfully released until the end of the process,” District Attorney Seth Williams said in a statement.

His office contended at trial that Lynn reassigned known predators to new parishes in Philadelphia while he was the archdiocese’s secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004. Lynn’s conviction stems from the case of one priest, Edward Avery, found to have abused a child in 1998 after such a transfer.

Victims’ groups blasted the reversal.

“We know thousands of betrayed Catholics and wounded victims will be disheartened by this news,” said David Cloches, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Lynn’s attorneys have long argued that the state’s child-endangerment law at the time applied only to parents and caregivers, not supervisors like Lynn. Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina had rejected their argument and sent the case to trial.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholic World Report

December 27, 2013
By Carl E. Olson

The Wall Street Journal reports:

A landmark criminal conviction of a Roman Catholic monsignor imprisoned for his handling of sexual-abuse allegations was overturned Thursday by a Pennsylvania appeals court.

A three-judge Superior Court panel ordered the release of Msgr. William Lynn, the first U.S. Catholic official ever convicted of a criminal charge related to the alleged coverup of sexual abuse of minors by other priests.

Msgr. Lynn, who served in the Philadelphia Archdiocese as a top aide to its archbishop, could be released as early as this week, his lawyer said. He already has served 18 months of a three-to-six-year sentence after a Pennsylvania jury last year found him guilty of child endangerment for allowing a priest accused of sexual abuse to continue to have contact with children.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
TheMediaReport

[court ruling]

***MAJOR BREAKING STORY*** In a landmark July 2012 event which made headlines around the world, Philadelphia’s Msgr. William J. Lynn became the first Catholic official convicted on the claim of failing to supervise abusive priests. An appellate court has now overturned this wrong conviction. [See full background]

• [THU. 12/26/13, 1:06PM] … Associated Press:
“A Pennsylvania appeals court has ruled that a Roman Catholic church official was wrongly convicted for his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints.

“The unanimous decision released Thursday by the state Superior Court also dismisses the criminal case against Monsignor William Lynn.”

• [THU. 12/26/13, 1:46PM] … Ralph Cipriano / BigTrial.net coverage! … “This whole prosecution was totally dishonest from day one,” Lynn’s attorney Thomas Bergstrom tells Cipriano. “He’s been sitting in jail 18 months for a crime he couldn’t possibly commit as a matter of law.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The New York Times

By ERIK ECKHOLM and STEVEN YACCINO
Published: December 26, 2013

A Pennsylvania appeals court on Thursday overturned the criminal conviction of a Roman Catholic official who was accused of covering up sexual abuses by priests he supervised. The court rejected the legal basis for a prosecution that was viewed as a milestone in holding senior church officials accountable for keeping abuse reports secret in past decades and transferring predatory priests to unwary new parishes.

The official, Msgr. William J. Lynn of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, has spent 18 months in prison, but was not released and now must apply for bail.

He was the first senior church official in the United States to be criminally indicted not for abusing children himself, but for lax oversight of priests with histories of committing sexual abuse.

His conviction in June 2012 on one count of child endangerment, and sentence of three to six years in prison, was lauded by victim advocates as an overdue assignment of responsibility to senior church officials. But it was portrayed by Monsignor Lynn’s supporters as overly harsh for a man who made misjudgments but was following the orders of an archbishop, who has since died.

Thomas A. Bergstrom, a lawyer for Monsignor Lynn, called the ruling “a strong opinion by a unanimous court.” He said of the monsignor: “He shouldn’t have been convicted, He shouldn’t have been sentenced.” …

“The process of taking this case through the criminal system likely stirred as much change as any conviction,” said Timothy D. Lytton, a professor of law at the Albany Law School and the author of “Holding Bishops Accountable.”

Two grand jury reports and the Lynn trial showed “in excruciating detail,” Mr. Lytton said, that Philadelphia church officials “placed concern about scandal to the church above child welfare.” …

Whether or not the conviction stands up, Monsignor Lynn’s trial remains a warning to church officials everywhere, said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior analyst with The National Catholic Reporter and expert on church leadership.

“Everyone in the chancery now knows they could be arrested and prosecuted if they do not follow the law carefully,” he said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

AUBREY WHELAN, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
POSTED: Thursday, December 26, 2013

Advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse said Thursday that the dismissal of Msgr. William Lynn’s conviction on child-endangerment charges is nothing short of a travesty of justice.

“What a disgrace!” Marita Green, president of the Philadelphia chapter of Catholic activist group Voice of the Faithful said in a statement. “I don’t care whose ‘orders’ Lynn followed whether [Cardinals] Bevilaqua’s, Krol’s or even O’Hara’s! It is appalling that the laws in the state of Pennsylvania have been so ineffective that none of these enablers, facilitators and cover-up-ers have gone to jail.”

But supporters of the monsignor said they were elated at the news.

“I think that this case will give other prosecutors around the country pause to reflect on who is really accountable for the damage that may have been done to victims of sexual abuse,” said Joe Maher, the founder of Opus Bono Sacerdotii, a Detroit organization that provides assistance to accused priests.

Lynn, 62, was the first Catholic Church administrator in the country to be charged with covering up child sex abuse.

Nearly 18 months after he went to prison, his lawyers persuaded a Superior Court panel that prosecutors and the Philadelphia trial judge misapplied the state’s child endangerment laws. They contended the laws in place when he was secretary for clergy in the 1990s and early 2000s only applied to those who directly supervised children, and the higher court agreed. …

Some advocates called for stronger child endangerment laws.

“The issue – and this is an issue that’s much broader than this case – is whether the laws are adequate to deal with what we’re seeing in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and elsewhere,” said Terry McKiernan, who runs Bishop Accountability, a website documenting abuse by priests.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

The Superior Court of Pennsylvania today reversed the “historic” conviction of Msgr. William J. Lynn on one count of endangering the welfare of a child.

The court said the “plain language” of the state’s 1972 child endangerment law required that Lynn had to be “a supervisor of an endangered child victim” in order to be convicted of the third-degree felony of endangering the welfare of a child. Lynn, however, never even met Billy Doe, the former 10-year-old altar boy who was the alleged victim in the case.

In a 43-page opinion, the Superior Court said Judge M. Teresa Sarmina’s decision to allow the conviction of Lynn under the state’s original child endangerment law was “fundamentally flawed.”

“It’s just absolutely wonderful,” said Thomas A. Bergstrom, Lynn’s defense lawyer. The Superior Court opinion showed “this whole prosecution was totally dishonest from day one,” Bergstrom said of District Attorney Seth Williams and his staff. “They had to know that that statute didn’t apply to Lynn. And their attempt to justify it just doesn’t wash.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Detroit Free Press

PHILADELPHIA — A Catholic Church official will have to fight for bail in Philadelphia after his novel conviction in the priest-abuse scandal was thrown out.

Msgr. William Lynn has served 18 months in prison after a jury found he endangered a boy by helping protect a predator priest. But an appeals court overturned the child endangerment conviction Thursday, saying Lynn was not legally responsible for the boy’s welfare.

Lynn’s lawyers hoped the 62-year-old would go free, but the Superior Court instead sent the bail issue back to the trial court.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams pledged to oppose bail and appeal the ruling.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholic Sentinel

PHILADELPHIA — A panel of judges for a Pennsylvania Superior Court reversed the decision on a priest’s conviction in handling a clerical abuse case and ordered his release from prison.

The decision, announced Dec. 26, involves Msgr. William Lynn, former secretary for clergy in the Philadelphia Archdiocese. Msgr. Lynn has served 18 months of a 2012 prison sentence of three to six years after being found guilty of endangering the welfare of a child, a felony.

Prosecutors had argued that the priest had reassigned abusive priests to new parishes in the Philadelphia Archdiocese in his diocesan role as clergy secretary. However, Msgr. Lynn’s attorneys argued that Pennsylvania’s child-endangerment law at the time applied only to parents and caregivers, not to supervisors, which was Msgr. Lynn’s role.

Prosecutors could appeal the Superior Court panel’s decision or ask the full Superior Court to rehear the case.

The priest’s lawyers told The Associated Press they will try to get the priest released from the state prison in Waymart by Jan. 2.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Lawyer Herald

Superior Court Reverses Roman Catholic Church Monsignor William Lynn’s Conviction For His Handling of Sex-Abuse Complaints (Video)

Roman Catholic Church’s William Lynn, who was the first US Church official to be convicted in a criminal court for covering up sex abuse claims, has had his child endangerment conviction reversed its decision by the Philadelphia Court of Appeals, BBC News reported.

Monsignor Lynn had be serving three to six years in prison.

The “unanimous decision released Thursday by the state Superior Court also dismisses the criminal

Prosecutors argued Lynn reassigned predators to new parishes in Philadelphia when he was secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004. He was in charge of supervising about 800 priests, accordiing to news reports.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NPR

by SCOTT NEUMAN
December 26, 2013

After spending a year and a half in jail, a Philadelphia Roman Catholic priest convicted of child endangerment will go free after a court overturned the 2012 verdict.

NPR’s Jeff Brady says although Monsignor William Lynn, 62, was never accused of abuse himself, he was convicted in 2012 of putting children in danger by moving abusing priests to unwitting parishes. Lynn was an official of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia at the time.

On Thursday, however, a three-judge panel unanimously rejected prosecutors’ arguments that Lynn was legally responsible for the welfare the children allegedly abused by priests under his supervision.

“He’s been in prison 18 months for a crime he didn’t commit and couldn’t commit under the law,” Lynn’s attorney, Thomas Bergstrom, said. “It’s incredible what happened to this man.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Los Angeles Times

By Michael Muskal
December 26, 2013

A Pennsylvania appeals court on Thursday overturned the conviction of the first U.S. church official ever charged or convicted in connection with how he handled complaints that priests had sexually abused children.

Msgr. William Lynn, who has never been accused of personally molesting any child, was convicted in 2012 of endangering the welfare of a child for how he handled the case of a priest who had been accused of sexually abusing children. Lynn, who has already served about 18 months in prison, could be released as soon as Friday, a Superior Court of Pennsylvania appeals panel ruled.

In overturning the conviction, the three-judge panel unanimously rejected prosecution arguments that Lynn, 62, was legally responsible for the abused child’s welfare.

Philadelphia Dist. Atty. Seth Williams said he probably will fight any attempt to release the church official.

“I am disappointed and strongly disagree with the court’s decision,” Williams said in a statement. “While we are deciding what our next course of action will be, we most likely will be appealing this decision.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Washington Post

Catholic cleric’s child endangerment conviction overturned on appeal

A Pennsylvania appeals court has overturned the conviction of Monsignor William J. Lynn, the first U.S. Catholic cleric convicted on charges of covering up the sexual abuse of children.

The court ruled unanimously that Lynn was wrongly convicted of child endangerment for his handling of priest sex abuse complaints, The Associated Press reported.

The 2012 case drew national attention as Lynn was tried for what many see as unaddressed crimes of child sex abuse by priests in the Roman Catholic Church. At Lynn’s conviction, no U.S. Catholic cleric had been held accountable in criminal court.

Since then, Bishop Robert W. Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge for failing to tell police about a priest suspected of sexually exploiting children. Finn is the first U.S. bishop to be charged with failing to report suspected child abuse.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
BBC News

Roman Catholic Church official William Lynn has had his conviction for child endangerment reversed by a court in the US city of Philadelphia.

Monsignor Lynn was the first US Church official to be convicted in a criminal court for covering up sex abuse claims.

He was sentenced in 2012 to three to six years in prison but could now be released as early as Thursday.

The court said it had not been proven Mr Lynn had acted with the “intent of promoting or facilitating the crime”.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
TheMediaReport

**MAJOR BREAKING STORY***

• [THU. 12/26/13, 1:06PM] … Associated Press: “A Pennsylvania appeals court has ruled that a Roman Catholic church official was wrongly convicted for his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints.

“The unanimous decision released Thursday by the state Superior Court also dismisses the criminal case against Monsignor William Lynn.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
KOLO

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Lawyers for a Roman Catholic church official are going to try to get him released as early as this week from a state prison in Pennsylvania — now that an appeals court has reversed his conviction for child endangerment.

The appeals panel is ordering the release of Monsignor William Lynn. But prosecutors are planning to fight the ruling, and resist any move to release him.

Lynn is serving a three-to-six-year prison sentence. He was charged over his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints. He was the first U.S. church official ever charged or convicted for the handling of those complaints.

But the appeals panel is rejecting the argument from prosecutors that Lynn was legally responsible for the welfare of an abused child. Prosecutors said he had re-assigned known predators to new parishes in Philadelphia. His conviction stemmed from the case of one priest who was found to have abused a child after one of those transfers.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Irish Independent

26 DECEMBER 2013

A Pennsylvania appeals court has ruled that a Roman Catholic church official was wrongly convicted for his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints.

The unanimous decision released today by the state Superior Court also dismisses the criminal case against Monsignor William Lynn.

Mgr Lynn has been serving three to six years in prison after his child-endangerment conviction last year.

Prosecutors had argued that Mgr Lynn reassigned predators to new parishes in Philadelphia when he was secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004.

Mgr Lynn’s conviction relates to the case of one priest, Edward Avery, who was found to have abused a child after such a transfer.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
ABC News (Australia)

A high-ranking US Catholic church official convicted last year of covering up a child sex abuse scandal has had his conviction overturned.

Monsignor William Lynn was convicted in June 2012 of endangering the welfare of a child by reassigning a priest with a history of sexual abuse to a Philadelphia parish that was unaware of his past.

That priest, Edward Avery, later pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 10-year-old altar boy in the Philadelphia parish.

Lynn, who was not accused of personally molesting children, was sentenced to a three-to-six-year prison term.

A Superior Court of Pennsylvania appeals panel reversed his conviction on Thursday, and ordered Lynn to be discharged from prison.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

ALEX WIGGLESWORTH, FOR PHILLY.COM
LAST UPDATED: Thursday, December 26, 2013

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said he will most likely appeal the Superior Court’s reversal Thursday of the conviction of Monsignor William Lynn.

“I am disappointed and strongly disagree with the court’s decision,” Williams said in a statement. “While we are deciding what our next course of action will be, we most likely will be appealing this decision.”

Lynn from 1992 to 2004 served as the secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and was tasked with handling child sex abuse complaints. He was in June 2012 found guilty of felony child endangerment for covering up sex abuse claims brought against Catholic priests by reshuffling the accused to other parishes.

The Associated Press first report the court’s reversal.

Lynn’s attorney Thomas Bergstrom on Thursday called Williams’ likely appeal “a fool’s errand.”

“The court was very clear and very adamant that the statute didn’t apply to [Lynn] and he was wrongfully, wrongfully convicted,” Bergstrom said. “Williams has the prerogative to appeal and if he does, we’ll be right behind him.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

BEN FINLEY AND ALLISON STEELE, INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
LAST UPDATED: Thursday, December 26, 2013

A state appeals court on Thursday reversed the conviction of Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former Archdiocese of Philadelphia administrator who became the first church official nationwide to be tried for covering up child sex abuse by priests.

In a 43-page opinion, a three-judge Superior Court panel wrote that prosecutors had misapplied the state’s child endangerment law by claiming Lynn, as the archdiocese secretary for clery, was responsible for abuse because he supervised a priest who abused a child.

The court wrote that the law, as it was written during Lynn’s tenure in the 1990s and early 2000s, only held accountable people who directly supervised children.

The court also found that Lynn, now 63, could not be an accomplice to such abuse because there was no proof he had specific knowledge that a priest was planning or preparing to assault children.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Tribune-Review

By The Associated Press

Published: Thursday, Dec. 26, 2013

PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic church official who has been jailed for more than a year for his handling of priest sex-abuse complaints had his conviction reversed and was ordered released Thursday.

In dismissing the landmark criminal case, a three-judge appeals court panel unanimously rejected prosecutors’ arguments that Monsignor William Lynn, the first U.S. church official ever charged or convicted for the handling of clergy-abuse complaints, was legally responsible for the abused child’s welfare.

“He’s been in prison 18 months for a crime he didn’t commit and couldn’t commit under the law,” said his attorney, Thomas Bergstrom. “It’s incredible what happened to this man.”

Lynn, 62, is serving a three- to six-year prison sentence after his child-endangerment conviction last year. His lawyers will try to get him released as early as this week from the state prison in Waymart. Prosecutors promised to fight the ruling and any move to release him.

Prosecutors had argued at trial that Lynn reassigned known predators to new parishes in Philadelphia while he was the archdiocese’s secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004. …

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said he strongly disagrees with state Superior Court panel’s 43-page opinion reversing Sarmina’s decision.

“Because we will be appealing, the conviction still stands for now, and the defendant cannot be lawfully released until the end of the process,” Williams said in a statement.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
PBS

A Pennsylvania appeals court has reversed a 2012 ruling against a senior Catholic Church official convicted of covering up sexual abuses by priests. In June 2012, Monsignor William Lynn was found guilty of child endangerment for his alleged role in reassigning predators to new parishes in Philadelphia when he was secretary for the clergy from 1992 to 2004. Lynn’s conviction for covering up sexual abuse had been the first of its kind against a senior official of the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S.

A unanimous decision released Thursday by the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled that Lynn was wrongly convicted and dismissed the criminal case against him. Lynn’s attorneys argued that the state’s child endangerment law at the time only applied to parents and caregivers, not supervisors like him. Lynn had already begun serving his three to six year prison sentence.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
U.S. Catholic

By Scott Alessi

When Msgr. William Lynn was convicted of child endangerment last year for his role in the cover-up of sexual abuse by priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, it was seen as a major turning point in the effort to hold church leaders accountable for their past sins. Lynn, who served as the secretary for clergy in Philadelphia, was the first Catholic priest sent to jail not for abusing children, but for failing to investigate claims of abuse and for not removing accused priests from positions where they had access to children. He was sentenced to 3-6 years in prison, the first sign that those who did not act to protect children from known or suspected abusers could be held legally accountable for their actions.

Or so we thought. Today, the Associated Press reports that a three judge Superior Court panel overturned the decision and ordered the release of Lynn from prison. Did new evidence reveal that Lynn really wasn’t involved in covering up abuse or failing to remove abusive priests from ministry? No, his lawyers just used a legal loophole to get the conviction thrown out.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Stuff (New Zealand)

A US appeals court has overturned the conviction of a high-ranking Catholic church official foudn guilty last year of covering up a child sex abuse scandal.

Monsignor William Lynn was convicted in June, 2012, of endangering the welfare of a child by re-assigning a priest with a history of sexual abuse to a Philadelphia parish that was unaware of his past.

Lynn was sentenced to a three-to-six-year prison term.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Raw Story

By George Chidi
Thursday, December 26, 2013

The only Roman Catholic church official jailed in the U.S. in the sex abuse scandals of recent years has been freed by an appeals court, which reversed his child endangerment conviction Thursday.

A three-judge Superior Court panel unanimously set aside the conviction of Monsignor William Lynn on the three- to six-year prison sentence he had been serving on a child-endangerment conviction last year. Lynn had been charged for failing to protect children in his Philadelphia-area diocese from predatory priests, reassigning them to other parishes rather than reporting them and removing them from contact with children.

The appeals court panels opinion said that the child endangerment law only applied to parents and direct caregivers, and not people in administrative or supervisory roles. Prosecutors may ask a full Superior Court panel to rehear the case.

The decision left church reform advocates reeling. “We’re heartsick,” Barbara Dorris, outreach director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told Raw Story. “We felt that this conviction sent a very strong message that if you protect predators, you would be punished. We hoped it would cause other prosecutors to go after other people protecting pedophiles. We thought it was a trend, a start.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WHTC

Thursday, December 26, 2013

By Dave Warner

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A Pennsylvania appeals court on Thursday overturned the conviction of a high-ranking U.S. Catholic church official convicted last year of covering up a child sex abuse scandal.

Monsignor William Lynn was convicted in June 2012, of endangering the welfare of a child by reassigning a priest with a history of sexual abuse to a Philadelphia parish that was unaware of his past.

That priest, Edward Avery, later pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 10-year-old altar boy in the Philadelphia parish.

Lynn, who was not accused of personally molesting children, was sentenced to a three-to-six-year prison term.

A Superior Court of Pennsylvania appeals panel reversed his conviction on Thursday and ordered Lynn discharged from prison.

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