In historic verdict, priest guilty in child sex abuse cover

[D1B]

Looks like the strategy of blaming it on the regime that worked so well for nazi war criminals, worked againfor catholic criminals and pedophiles. However, don't discount the fact that one of those cowardly, pedophile-protecting fat perverts who runs the catholic church is going to fucking jail for endangering children. Finally, after tens of thousands of molested children and billions of dollars in lost civil cases, one of those motherfuckers has been held accountable.

No top U.S. official of the Roman Catholic Church has been ever criminally convicted for child endangerment –– until now.

After 13 days of deliberations, a Philadelphia jury of seven men and five women found Monsignor William Lynn guilty on Friday (June 22) of one count of endangering the welfare of a child and acquitted of two other counts -- one of conspiracy and a second endangerment charge.
The Washington Post writes that lead prosecutor Patrick Blessington, seemed angry at Lynn’s acquittals. So he wasted no time in asking that the priest be taken right to custody.
The 61-year-old Lynn, face reddened but stoic, slipped off his black clerical jacket before deputy sheriffs led him out of the courtroom and into custody, his family members weeping, Reuters said.
Now, his lawyer Jeffrey Lindy, seemed angry. He called the decision not to let his client remain free on bond prior to sentencing "an unspeakable miscarriage of justice (for) a 61-year-old man with no prior record and long established ties to the community," CNN reports.
“He deserves to go to prison like the criminal he is,” Blessington shot back.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/3 ... z1yj026sMM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[JoltinJoe]

A couple of questions.

If this was such an "historic" verdict for the prosecution, how come the prosecutor was visibly angry when the verdict was announced, as reported in the above article?

Oh, and the Philly DA spent 10 weeks trying to prove the conspiracy outlined in the grand jury report to which you have cited so often. How did he fare on the most significant charges in the case?

The child endangerment counts were fallback positions for a prosecution intending to prove an illegal conspiracy within the Philly Archdiocese. The prosecution failed to prove a conspiracy.

The conviction on a single-count of child endangerment is an embarrassment to the DA's office, and the prosecutor's in-court reaction is confirmation of that fact.

If you had a shred of intellectual integrity, you would admit that I was right, and that the single conviction represents what I have said all along: there have been exercises in judgment, personal to individual prelates, which have been criminal, but there has been no intentional conspiracy to shield predators.

[D1B]

A couple of questions.

If this was such an "historic" verdict for the prosecution, how come the prosecutor was visibly angry when the verdict was announced, as reported in the above article?

Oh, and the Philly DA spent 10 weeks trying to prove the conspiracy outlined in the grand jury report to which you have cited so often. How did he fare on the most significant charges in the case?

The child endangerment counts were fallback positions for a prosecution intending to prove an illegal conspiracy within the Philly Archdiocese. The prosecution failed to prove a conspiracy.

The conviction on a single-count of child endangerment is an embarrassment to the DA's office, and the prosecutor's in-court reaction is confirmation of that fact.

If you had a shred of intellectual integrity, you would admit that I was right, and that the single conviction represents what I have said all along: there have been exercises in judgment, personal to individual prelates, which have been criminal, but there has been no intentional conspiracy to shield predators.

Joltin Joe Amendola - a pedophiles best friend.

[D1B]

From the Washington Post.

UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo

What, if anything, changes with the June 22nd conviction of Monsignor William J. Lynn for child endangerment? Legally, one can expect an appeal in order to prevent the former clergy secretary for the Philadelphia Archdiocese from serving the maximum sentence of seven years in jail. But, unlike previous cases, this trial was not of a clerical abuser but of a priest in charge of personnel appointments. The court finding substantiates Lynn’s culpable responsibility for knowing that such abuse was likely to occur, but endangering children nonetheless by assigning abusers to what we Catholics call “near occasions of sin.” Fucking mealy-mouthed catholics.

There is little doubt that since 2002 the bishops have legislated stricter guidelines that have had the effect of substantially reducing the instances of clerical pedophilia.

I would not agree with Dr. William Donohue of the Catholic League, however, that the conviction of the monsignor represents a “victory” over the church’s anti-Catholic enemies. Reading the transcript makes it hard to avoid the prosecutors’ insistence that the monsignor had “helped the archdiocese keep predators in ministry, and the public in the dark, by telling parishes their priests were being removed for health reasons and then sending the men to unsuspecting churches.” This may not be a conspiracy, (one of the charges on which Lynn was dismissed) but it is a crime.

To a reasonable observer, this case demonstrates that the courts will not afford clergymen a version of the Nazi’s Nuremburg defense that they “were only following orders.”

[JoltinJoe]

From the Washington Post.
Reading the transcript makes it hard to avoid the prosecutors’ insistence that the monsignor had “helped the archdiocese keep predators in ministry, and the public in the dark, by telling parishes their priests were being removed for health reasons and then sending the men to unsuspecting churches.” This may not be a conspiracy, (one of the charges on which Lynn was dismissed) but it is a crime.

This guy is as deceptive as you are -- albeit, more clever and smarter.

This is precisely the conspiracy alleged by the prosecution and, if proven, it would have been an illegal conspiracy. It also precisely the illegal conspiracy considered and rejected by the jury.

More to the point, this article underscores the sad state of modern journalism. My old editor would have called this columnist's statement, in his professional jargon, "a load of shit." So this columnist basically throws out the work of a jury -- an excellent jury whose questions to the judge demonstrated a keen grasp of the factual and legal issues -- by claiming that his "reading of [the] transcript makes it hard" to avoid the prosecution's allegations of a conspiracy.

You see, back in the day of legitimate journalism, an editor would have called out the columnist on this bullshit. This was an 11-week trial. You can bet you bottom dollar this columnist did not -- as represented -- read the trial transcripts of this 11-week trial. Where is the Op-Ed page editor at the Washington Post? He should have called this columnist out for this obvious bullshit.

[D1B]

Here's Lynn's list of Pedophile Priests:

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/do ... ibit_1.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Lynn didn't give a fuck about the kids. What decent person does this?

Classic catholic scumbag.

[D1B]

EDITORIAL: Conviction puts Catholic hierarchy on notice

More than 10 painful years after the clerical sexual abuse scandal broke open wide with the child molestation conviction of a Boston priest, a U.S. Catholic church official who protected predator priests has finally been held accountable.

By doing nothing when he knew about pedophile priests while he was secretary of clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the Rev. Monsignor William Lynn allowed the abuse to continue. That was basically the message sent by a Philadelphia jury Friday when, after a 10-week trial, they found Lynn guilty of one felony count of endangering the welfare of children.

The 61-year-old monsignor, who formerly was parochial vicar at St. Katharine of Siena parish in the Wayne section of Radnor, served as secretary of clergy from 1992 to 2004, mostly under former Philadelphia Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

During the trial, jurors learned that Lynn had assembled a “secret file” of known or suspected pedophile priests that, in 1994, Bevliacqua — a canon and a civil attorney — ordered to be shredded. Prosecutors got to see the list after a copy of it was found this year in an archdiocesan safe.

It helped confirm what many had claimed — that church officials knew of abusive priests, but allowed them to stay in circulation, even re-assigning some to parishes where they had continued access to children. The premise for church officials keeping abusive priests closeted, presumably, was to help the church save face and money from potential lawsuits.

But what must have been hardest for jurors to hear was the wrenching testimony of more than 12 adults who said they were sexually abused by priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia when they were children or adolescents.

One of them was the victim of former Haverford resident Edward Avery, a priest who was defrocked in 2006 because church officials found allegations of sexual abuse against him credible. He was to be Lynn’s co-defendant but he pleaded guilty to abusing an altar boy in 1999 just four days before the trial started March 26. He is serving two and a half to five years in prison.

Nevertheless, Avery’s guilty plea helped bring to justice Lynn who, as evidence in the trial showed, was aware of Avery’s pedophilia. The jury was deadlocked over a verdict for Lynn’s other co-defendant, the Rev. James Brennan, who formerly taught at Cardinal O’Hara High School in Marple and is now out of active ministry. He was accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy during a leave of absence from his ministry in 1996.

Lynn’s attorney, Thomas Bergstrom, maintained that Lynn was just following orders when he didn’t turn the known or suspected pedophile priests over to civil authorities and that he is a scapegoat for all the cases of unchecked clerical sexual abuse. There is a measure of truth to that assertion.

As a grand jury investigation launched by former Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham revealed in 2005, 63 priests in the archdiocese allegedly abused children as far back as the 1940s. None could be prosecuted because of the expired statute of limitations which, in 2006, was expanded to age 50 for victims. That means priests abused children in the archdiocese without consequence under the watch of cardinals John Krol and John O’Hara and Archbishop Dennis Dougherty. Needless to say, Philadelphia is not the only diocese in the United States and the rest of the world where abusive priests were allowed to fester.

Charges against Lynn and the other defendants arose as a result of a grand jury investigation launched by Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, who released the findings in February 2011. Since the criminal justice system forced the Catholic Church’s ugly secret out into the open, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has developed a Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. Church officials have regularly issued apologies for the pain caused by abusive priests.

But if it were not for the diligence of Abraham, Williams and their investigators, and the courage of the abuse victims who came forward, the failure of an entire institution to protect its children would have never been brought to light.

Hopefully, Lynn’s conviction marks the beginning of the end for passing the buck in the Catholic Church. It is only a matter of time before it stops at the Vatican.

http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2012 ... =fullstory" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[D1B]

he last decade has been a season of agony for the Catholic Church in the United States, a pilgrimage through purgatory made all the more painful by being self-inflicted.

Thousands of children have accused Catholic priests, seminarians, nuns, and brothers of molesting them. Victims have told stories of suffering intensified by official church neglect. The church has paid out billions of dollars in settlements. Most controversial of all, Catholic bishops have been accused of trying to hush it all up, shuffling offenders from one unsuspecting parish to another.

Now, Msgr. William J. Lynn, former secretary for clergy of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, has become the first high-ranking church official convicted for failing to protect children from the possibility of abuse.

It's a pivotal moment in the worst crisis the Catholic church in the United States has ever faced.

"Everybody working for a bishop is put on notice that they can go to jail if they don't do the right thing, even if they're doing what the bishop was telling them," said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest and senior fellow at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center.

"This is sending a very strong message to every priest personnel director, bishop's secretary, and chancellor in the country that it won't be a legitimate excuse to say, 'The bishop told me to do it,' " said Reese, formerly editor of the Jesuit magazine America and author of books on the Vatican and the American hierarchy.

"It's hugely significant and long overdue," said Philip F. Lawler, editor of the online Catholic World News. "If bishops and their assistants in the chanceries had been accountable, they wouldn't have to be held accountable by the courts."

"It's a major, major move forward for those of us trying to help victims," said the Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, a canon lawyer formerly on the staff of the Vatican's diplomatic mission in Washington.

An even higher-ranking church official than Lynn - Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., - has been charged criminally with failure to report abuse. Finn was indicted on the misdemeanor charge in October. His trial is scheduled for September.

Good to see some decent people in the church with a proper perspective on the historic case.

http://articles.philly.com/2012-06-24/n ... ic-bishops" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[JoltinJoe]

What a load of manure you are.

I have no problem with prelates who endangered children getting hauled into court and convicted if the facts warrant it.

What is significant about this verdict -- and what you are trying to obscure -- is that you have recklessly made statements about a "conspiracy" over and over. And this jury rejected the prosecution's case of a conspiracy.

In contrast, I have always said there was no conspiracy, that the cases involved individual abuses of discretion and judgment.

So when the jury rejected the conspiracy, and held Lynn accountable for his individual abuse of judgment, it was rejecting your claims and accepting mine.

What's so hard to grasp about this? Do you think you can dupe people here with your spin?

[GannonFan]

he last decade has been a season of agony for the Catholic Church in the United States, a pilgrimage through purgatory made all the more painful by being self-inflicted.

Thousands of children have accused Catholic priests, seminarians, nuns, and brothers of molesting them. Victims have told stories of suffering intensified by official church neglect. The church has paid out billions of dollars in settlements. Most controversial of all, Catholic bishops have been accused of trying to hush it all up, shuffling offenders from one unsuspecting parish to another.

Now, Msgr. William J. Lynn, former secretary for clergy of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, has become the first high-ranking church official convicted for failing to protect children from the possibility of abuse.

It's a pivotal moment in the worst crisis the Catholic church in the United States has ever faced.

"Everybody working for a bishop is put on notice that they can go to jail if they don't do the right thing, even if they're doing what the bishop was telling them," said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest and senior fellow at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center.

"This is sending a very strong message to every priest personnel director, bishop's secretary, and chancellor in the country that it won't be a legitimate excuse to say, 'The bishop told me to do it,' " said Reese, formerly editor of the Jesuit magazine America and author of books on the Vatican and the American hierarchy.

"It's hugely significant and long overdue," said Philip F. Lawler, editor of the online Catholic World News. "If bishops and their assistants in the chanceries had been accountable, they wouldn't have to be held accountable by the courts."

"It's a major, major move forward for those of us trying to help victims," said the Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, a canon lawyer formerly on the staff of the Vatican's diplomatic mission in Washington.

An even higher-ranking church official than Lynn - Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., - has been charged criminally with failure to report abuse. Finn was indicted on the misdemeanor charge in October. His trial is scheduled for September.

Good to see some decent people in the church with a proper perspective on the historic case.

http://articles.philly.com/2012-06-24/n ... ic-bishops" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The decent people have been in the Church all along - you tended not to notice that in your sweeping indictment of any and all people/things Catholic and/or religious.

[D1B]

Good to see some decent people in the church with a proper perspective on the historic case.

http://articles.philly.com/2012-06-24/n ... ic-bishops" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The decent people have been in the Church all along - you tended not to notice that in your sweeping indictment of any and all people/things Catholic and/or religious.

No shit there are decent people in the church, Marcus Fucking Welby, M.D.

My sweeping indictments involve their criminal leadership, including the pope, who orchestrated the cover up. Oh, and evil fucks like Joltin Joe who make excuses for them.

[D1B]

What a load of manure you are.

I have no problem with prelates who endangered children getting hauled into court and convicted if the facts warrant it.

What is significant about this verdict -- and what you are trying to obscure -- is that you have recklessly made statements about a "conspiracy" over and over. And this jury rejected the prosecution's case of a conspiracy.

In contrast, I have always said there was no conspiracy, that the cases involved individual abuses of discretion and judgment.

So when the jury rejected the conspiracy, and held Lynn accountable for his individual abuse of judgment, it was rejecting your claims and accepting mine.

What's so hard to grasp about this? Do you think you can dupe people here with your spin?

You're a creepy fuck. Don't address anything to me. I don't want to have anything to do with you.

[JoltinJoe]

What a load of manure you are.

I have no problem with prelates who endangered children getting hauled into court and convicted if the facts warrant it.

What is significant about this verdict -- and what you are trying to obscure -- is that you have recklessly made statements about a "conspiracy" over and over. And this jury rejected the prosecution's case of a conspiracy.

In contrast, I have always said there was no conspiracy, that the cases involved individual abuses of discretion and judgment.

So when the jury rejected the conspiracy, and held Lynn accountable for his individual abuse of judgment, it was rejecting your claims and accepting mine.

What's so hard to grasp about this? Do you think you can dupe people here with your spin?

You're a creepy ****. Don't address anything to me. I don't want to have anything to do with you.

[GannonFan]

The decent people have been in the Church all along - you tended not to notice that in your sweeping indictment of any and all people/things Catholic and/or religious.

No **** there are decent people in the church, Marcus **** Welby, M.D.

My sweeping indictments involve their criminal leadership, including the pope, who orchestrated the cover up. Oh, and evil **** like Joltin Joe who make excuses for them.

Sadly, you tend to lose focus of that and say things to the contrary while you're foaming at the mouth to indict the hierarchy or JJ. And that's assuming that you don't mean to do that, as your pretty established scorn of religious institutions and the people who belong to them (lay included) would indicate that you don't actually separate the two in your sweeping indictments.

[D1B]

No **** there are decent people in the church, Marcus **** Welby, M.D.

My sweeping indictments involve their criminal leadership, including the pope, who orchestrated the cover up. Oh, and evil **** like Joltin Joe who make excuses for them.

Sadly, you tend to lose focus of that and say things to the contrary while you're foaming at the mouth to indict the hierarchy or JJ. And that's assuming that you don't mean to do that, as your pretty established scorn of religious institutions and the people who belong to them (lay included) would indicate that you don't actually separate the two in your sweeping indictments.

Fine. Let's celebrate the recent historic and long overdue verdict. The church is now on notice. The Joltin Joes of the world are now put on notice. You look the other way while your gay pervert priests fuck kids, you'll go to jail like that fat fuck Lynn.

[D1B]

From USA Today

During the 10-week trial, more than a dozen adults testified about wrenching abuse they said they suffered at the hands of revered priests.

A former seminarian said he was raped by a priest throughout high school at the priest's mountain house. *So a fucking priest has a mountain house?! Unfuckingbelievable hypocrite catholic scum.

A nun testified that she and two female relatives were sexually abused by a priest described by a church official as "one of the sickest people I ever knew." *I did not know priests were interested in women. I guess you learn something new every day.

A troubled young man described being sexually assaulted in the church sacristy in 1999 by Avery after the 10-year-old altar boy served Mass. Avery is serving a 2 1/2- to five-year prison term. *Avery should have went to trial and took advantage of the million dollar lawyers paid for by Andy, Joke and Hen as well as the numerous obedient catholics on the jury.

"I can't explain the pain, because I'm still trying to figure it out today, but I have an emptiness where my soul should be," another accuser testified. His mother had sent him to a priest for counseling as an eighth-grader because he'd been raped by a family friend. The priest then followed suit, he said.

Sam Harris nailed the catholic church:

It is no exaggeration to say that for decades (if not centuries) the Vatican has met the formal definition of a criminal organization, devoted not to gambling, prostitution, drugs, or any other venial sin, but to the sexual enslavement of children.

[JoltinJoe]

Wow, you are really pissed off that the jury rejected the conspiracy argument. Give it a rest, Flounder.

[D1B]

Wow, you are really pissed off that the jury rejected the conspiracy argument. Give it a rest, Flounder.

The prosecution was hamstrung by statute of limitations and that the primary conspirator is dead. Shit, I'm just happy the children got the endangerment verdict, Joltin Joe Amendola. Catholic attorneys, while scumbags, are brilliant and battle tested. This was about all a person who truly cares about justice could ask for right now.

All the fucks in your church better be watching their ass now. This is only the beginning.

Sam Harris:

I confess that, as a critic of religion, I have paid too little attention to the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Frankly, it always felt unsportsmanlike to shoot so large and languorous a fish in so tiny a barrel. This scandal was one of the most spectacular "own goals" in the history of religion, and there seemed to be no need to deride faith at its most vulnerable and self-abased. Even in retrospect, it is easy to understand the impulse to avert one's eyes: Just imagine a pious mother and father sending their beloved child to the Church of a Thousand Hands for spiritual instruction, only to have him raped and terrified into silence by threats of hell. And then imagine this occurring to tens of thousands of children in our own time -- and to children beyond reckoning for over a thousand years. The spectacle of faith so utterly misplaced, and so fully betrayed, is simply too depressing to think about.

But there was always more to this phenomenon that should have compelled my attention. Consider the ludicrous ideology that made it possible: The Catholic Church has spent two millennia demonizing human sexuality to a degree unmatched by any other institution, declaring the most basic, healthy, mature, and consensual behaviors taboo. Indeed, this organization still opposes the use of contraception, preferring, instead, that the poorest people on earth be blessed with the largest families and the shortest lives. As a consequence of this hallowed and incorrigible stupidity, the Church has condemned generations of decent people to shame and hypocrisy -- or to Neolithic fecundity, poverty, and death by AIDS. Add to this inhumanity the artifice of cloistered celibacy, and you now have an institution -- one of the wealthiest on earth -- that preferentially attracts pederasts, pedophiles, and sexual sadists into its ranks, promotes them to positions of authority, and grants them privileged access to children. Finally, consider that vast numbers of children will be born out of wedlock, and their unwed mothers vilified, wherever Church teaching holds sway -- leading boys and girls by the thousands to be abandoned to Church-run orphanages only to be raped and terrorized by the clergy. Here, in this ghoulish machinery set to whirling through the ages by the opposing winds of shame and sadism, we mortals can finally glimpse how strangely perfect are the ways of the Lord.

[JoltinJoe]

Sam Harris.

Is he your new boyfriend now that Hitchens is gone? I guess you mourned for six months and now you can move on.

[D1B]

Sam Harris.

Is he your new boyfriend now that Hitchens is gone? I guess you mourned for six months and now you can move on.

You jealous? Again?

[GannonFan]

Sadly, you tend to lose focus of that and say things to the contrary while you're foaming at the mouth to indict the hierarchy or JJ. And that's assuming that you don't mean to do that, as your pretty established scorn of religious institutions and the people who belong to them (lay included) would indicate that you don't actually separate the two in your sweeping indictments.

Fine. Let's celebrate the recent historic and long overdue verdict. The church is now on notice. The Joltin Joes of the world are now put on notice. You look the other way while your gay pervert priests **** kids, you'll go to jail like that fat **** Lynn.

There you go again, throwing someone like JJ into the mix as if he's done something wrong. I'm pretty sure JJ's been clear that Lynn was guilty of what he ultimately was found guilty of, and I don't see him advocating for him at all. I think he's been arguing there are bad people in the church - you seem to argue that the church and religion is bad.

[D1B]

Fine. Let's celebrate the recent historic and long overdue verdict. The church is now on notice. The Joltin Joes of the world are now put on notice. You look the other way while your gay pervert priests **** kids, you'll go to jail like that fat **** Lynn.

There you go again, throwing someone like JJ into the mix as if he's done something wrong. I'm pretty sure JJ's been clear that Lynn was guilty of what he ultimately was found guilty of, and I don't see him advocating for him at all. I think he's been arguing there are bad people in the church - you seem to argue that the church and religion is bad.

Oh, please. Joe's is trying to capitalize on the fact that the primary conspirator in the Lynn case is dead and catholic criminals and their million dollar lawyers have the Nuremberg Defense down pat. If that pedophile fuck Bevilacqua (who died conveniently a day after the court ruled he was fit to testify ) was alive, all those motherfuckers would have been convicted. Like a true fuck head, he tries to play the ultimate verdict off as some vindication of his fucked up church.

Joe has consistently looked the other way and made excuses for his church pedophiles. He minimizes their crimes, disparages victims and actually thinks the thousands upon thousands of crimes are the unfortunate isolated incidents of a few bad apples and not the product of a sick and secretive cult of cloistered pedophiles, sadists, homosexuals and perverts using the vast wealth of the church to protect each other, hide the truth and avoid accountability.

The Lynn trial is a perfect illustration, one of many, that everyone was in on it - from the Pope to Cardinals to secretaries to the janitors, parents and many lay people who refused to hold their church accountable. They all knew what was going on, but were silent and did nothing while children were raped by the thousands.