PENNSYLVANIA
Big Trial
By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net
Father Charles Engelhardt spends his days in prison reciting prayers, psalms and hymns from the Liturgy of the Hours.
“That’s his anchor,” Father Jerry Dunne says about Engelhardt’s daily devotion to the official prayer book for the Catholic clergy.
Dunne visits Engelhardt every month at the State Correctional Institution in Coal Township, Northumberland County, some 2 1/2 hours northwest of Philadelphia. That’s where Engelhardt, 67, is serving a six to 12 year sentence after he was convicted on Jan. 30, 2013 of endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of a minor and indecent assault. The “victim” in the case is the credibility-challenged former altar boy known as “Billy Doe.”
Dunne has known “Charlie” Engelhardt for more than 40 years. The two priests are fellow oblates of St. Francis DeSales. They went to the seminary and college together, and worked along side each other at a couple of archdiocesan high schools, as well as in the same parish.
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