PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Associated Press
March 16, 2020
By Maryclaire Dale
Nearly two decades after the Roman Catholic priest-abuse scandal exploded in the U.S. in 2002, only one church official has ever gone to prison over it: Monsignor William Lynn, the longtime secretary for clergy in the Philadelphia archdiocese.
After an appeals court found his sweeping 2012 trial flawed and his conviction was twice overturned, Lynn, 69, is set to be retried Monday on a single child endangerment count. Prosecutors contend he endangered children by transferring a known predator priest, after a year of inpatient therapy, to their parish without warning in 1993.
The landmark case, now trimmed to its core, will look nothing like the gut-wrenching, four-month trial that unearthed the church’s “secret archives,” drew more than 20 haunted victims to the witness stand and led the judge to conclude that Lynn allowed “monsters in clerical garb … to destroy the souls of children.”
This time, a new judge plans to steer clear of the broader priest-abuse crisis that has cost the church an estimated $3 billion or more, and plunged dioceses around the world into bankruptcy and scandal.
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