FOXNews.com: Philadelphia priest-abuse trial witness: Archbishop, not defendant, made priest transfers

FOXNews.com FOX News Network - We Report. You Decide. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Philadelphia priest-abuse trial witness: Archbishop, not defendant, made priest transfers May 22nd 2012, 18:21 PHILADELPHIA –  The defense in a groundbreaking child-endangerment trial laid blame for the transfer of predator-priests at the feet of a dead archbishop. Lawyers for Monsignor William Lynn called two colleagues to the stand Tuesday to try to counter eight weeks of searing evidence from the prosecution. The priests testified that Lynn, as secretary for clergy, never had the authority to remove problem priests or move them to new parishes. Instead, Lynn could only make recommendations to his superiors, and "ultimately to the cardinal," Monsignor Joseph P. Garvin testified. Lynn, 61, served as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, most of it under Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua. Bevilacqua died in January, two months before Lynn went on trial. Prosecutors preserved his testimony in a videotaped deposition late last year, but rested without playing it for jurors. Their evidence showed that Bevilacqua signed off on much of Lynn's work and occasionally overturned his recommendations. The cardinal's ornate initials can be seen on many of the internal church documents shown to the jury, files that were unearthed from locked, secret archives containing hundreds of abuse complaints. Bevilacqua also had a 1994 list of accused priests shredded, according to a memo signed by his top aides. Lynn had prepared the list. Lynn is charged with child endangerment and conspiracy for allegedly keeping two accused priests in jobs where they could abuse more children. One of those priests pleaded guilty before trial and the other, the Rev. James Brennan, is on trial with Lynn. Lynn's former assistant also testified Tuesday, telling jurors his boss tried to confront accused priests quickly and get each to agree to a four-day mental-health evaluation at St. John Vianney, a church-run treatment center. Lynn also met personally with the accusers, said Monsignor Michael McCulken, who worked for Lynn from 1994 to 1997. "He would offer compassion," McCulken said. "He would offer sorrow for what they had been through." More than a dozen accusers have testified, given harrowing details of the alleged abuse. Some said they were sexually abused for years, and were led to believe God approved of the activity. Lynn's office had no doctors, counselors or social workers on staff to guide them in their work, McCulken said. Lynn instead set up psychiatric evaluations, met with doctors and reviewed their reports before sending them up the chain of command to two supervisors and Bevilacqua, McCulken testified. The secretary for clergy no longer handles sex-abuse complaints, he said. Several new offices and panels created in the wake of the national priest-abuse crisis now share the work. The testimony Tuesday appeared designed to elicit information about Lynn's duties without putting the defendant on the stand. If so, the strategy had its limits, as the judge did not let the colleagues testify about Lynn's thought processes or his understanding of canon law. Lynn is not a canon lawyer, while Bevilacqua was trained in both civil and canon law. And Lynn had little to no training on how to handle sexual-abuse complaints, according to his 2002 grand jury testimony. Prosecutors were set to cross-examine McCulken later Tuesday.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions