By: MARYCLAIRE DALE | Associated Press Published: April 21, 2012 Updated: April 21, 2012 - 3:53 PM
PHILADELPHIA (AP) Graphic testimony in a Philadelphia clergy-abuse trial this month has ripped open secret church files and reopened old wounds among Catholics as scarred men and women tell jurors that priests groped, molested or raped them as teens.
The testimony has proven both painful and poignant, especially that of a 48-year-old man who said he had been in love with his parish priest during a five-year sexual relationship that began in ninth grade and jealous when the priest allegedly bedded down at his farmhouse with other teens.
The stories have been told before, in two Philadelphia grand jury reports and in lawsuits filed around the country.
But Monsignor William Lynn's decision to go to trial on child-endangerment charges stemming from his 12 years as secretary for clergy has brought the grand jury reports to life and seemingly put the archdiocese on trial. The judge is allowing testimony about more than 20 accused but uncharged priests, because Lynn knew of complaints lodged against them or took part in internal church investigations.
The accused priests were left in ministry, often transferred to unsuspecting parishes.
Nearly a dozen alleged victims have testified, while internal church memos and Lynn's 2002 grand jury testimony have been read aloud. And jurors will soon hear from a former altar boy who says he was raped by two priests and his fifth-grade teacher.
"None of these scandals rock my faith. I believe in church teaching and these scandals don't cause me to doubt it. But it's very discouraging in terms of the Catholic hierarchy in the American church and its inability to deal" with abuse allegations, said Joseph Fuisz, 41, a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, native who now lives in Florida and Washington, D.C., and is following the trial closely.
Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged with helping the church cover up complaints of child sexual abuse. He faces up to 28 years in prison if convicted.
"A lot of the information may not be new, but it's got a particularly salient impact ... because it's personal testimony in court, under oath, on the record, with a lot of media coverage," said Timothy Lytton, a University of Albany law professor who wrote a book on Catholic clergy abuse. "I think it turns the heat up."
One father of six belatedly told the archdiocese that his son had been "extremely upset" about playing Jesus as a child in a sadomasochistic Passion play but he and his wife "let it go." In another instance, the man allegedly abused at the farmhouse of the Rev. Stanley Gana said he confided to his mother years later about the abuse, only to be told she planned to remain friends with the priest.
A woman said she had asked to quit a weekend rectory job where the pastor groped her as a teen, but her parents wouldn't hear of it. Her sisters followed her into the job and were also fondled, she said.
"People nowadays are simply much more questioning of authority," said Nick Ingala, spokesman for Voice of the Faithful, a Boston-based group formed in the wake of the abuse crisis to try to empower lay Catholics. "The accountability here, and the transparency coming about (in the trial) ... is really the most important thing that's happening."
Many of the women who have testified this month to being fondled sound angry. But the male accusers are shattered. They were more often emotionally entangled with the priest, and say the abuse involved oral sex or sodomy.
"The hope is that this is the last incident we ever hear of in this archdiocese," lawyer Jim Ledyard said Friday, after noon Mass at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia. "I think many of us would be devastated if any further abuse is uncovered."
The cathedral sits beside the archdiocesan offices where Lynn worked from 1992 to 2004, most of it under the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.
Lynn, 61, is on trial with the Rev. James Brennan, 48, who is charged with sexually assaulting a teen in 1996. Each has pleaded not guilty. Defrocked priest Edward Avery, 69, pleaded guilty to sexual assault charges days before trial, and is serving a 2-1/2 to 5-year prison term.
Avery admitted to a 1999 attack on the altar boy. Another priest and former teacher from the northeast Philadelphia parish will go on trial separately later this year. That means disturbing revelations about the church will continue to shake out, even after Lynn's scheduled 12- to 16-week trial.
And it remains unclear if prosecutors are finished with the decade-long investigation of the Philadelphia archdiocese. One of Gana's accusers said he was once raped at a house owned by Bishop Michael Bransfield of West Virginia. Bransfield, a former Philadelphia priest and Gana friend, issued a statement saying he wasn't home at the time. And he forcefully denied trial allegations that he may have molested someone.
Bransfield's diocese called the trial "a circus" and said Philadelphia prosecutors are trying to "smear individuals not on trial ... to bolster their persecution of the church."
Fuisz disagrees.
"There is nothing wrong with this prosecution, nothing whatsoever," he said. "You don't take our love for the church and its teaching, and our wonderful tradition, and wield those around as artillery in a defense of Lynn."
Associated Press writers Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia and Michael Rubinkam in Allentown contributed to this report.
PHILADELPHIA — A heinous 1992 priest-abuse complaint “fell through the cracks” at the Philadelphia archdiocese, leaving the accused pastor to continue leading a suburban parish for three more years, according to testimony Thursday in a clergy-abuse trial.
Monsignor William Lynn, the longtime secretary for clergy at the Roman Catholic archdiocese, is charged with child endangerment and conspiracy in his handling of sex-abuse complaints about priests.
Prosecutors read some of Lynn’s 2002 grand jury testimony aloud to jurors to bolster claims that he and others kept predators in ministry to protect the church from scandal and costly lawsuits.
A seminarian in 1992 told Lynn and Lynn’s boss, the late Monsignor James Malloy, that he had been raped throughout high school by the Rev. Stanley Gana. The seminarian, who testified in person this week, gave Lynn and Malloy the names and parish of two other potential victims.
In his 2002 testimony, Lynn acknowledged the archdiocese never tried to contact the potential victims or to ask Gana’s colleagues if they had seen anything untoward at the rectory. Lynn testified that therapists had advised the church not to contact potential victims to avoid re-victimizing them if they had “moved on.”
Still, Lynn conceded that Gana should have been sent for a psychiatric evaluation.
“In reality, it fell through the cracks because I switched jobs at about that time,” said Lynn, who succeeded Malloy that year as secretary for clergy.
The two church officials did question Gana, who denied the allegations. According to Lynn’s testimony, Gana said he’d made a lot of enemies and his affection had been misconstrued, and he called one of the other potential victims “perverse” and “very disturbed.”
Malloy told Gana to avoid contact with the seminarian because the allegations, if true, might be criminal. Lynn agreed with the assessment, according to his testimony. Asked why he didn’t notify police, Lynn testified: “Because we weren’t required to.”
Gana remained pastor of Our Mother of Sorrows in Bridgeport until 1995, when a second accuser came forward. He was then sent to a church-run treatment center. He was deemed an alcoholic, not a pedophile — even though the accusers said he rarely drank.
According to the 2005 grand jury report, Gana quit another church-run, inpatient therapy program in 1996 and moved to a house he owned in Orlando, Fla. A nun soon called the Philadelphia archdiocese to complain he was living with young boys from Slovokia, the report said.
Gana agreed to go into a treatment program near Toronto, where a second psychologist said he was neither a pedophile nor a danger. He was assigned to a monastery until 2005, and defrocked in 2006.
Gana is now 69. It’s not clear where he’s living, and The Associated Press could not locate a current phone number for him.
Early in his career, in the early 1970s, Gana worked as a high school and Boy Scout chaplain.
The seminarian said he was assaulted by the 300-pound Gana several times a week in the early 1980s in northeast Philadelphia — at the parish rectory, at Gana’s farmhouse near Scranton and on trips. He and the second victim said Gana took turns sleeping with them and a third boy at the farmhouse on a regularly scheduled “rotation.”
EARLIER VERSION OF THIS STORY
PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia priest described by prosecutors as a serial predator was never investigated after a seminarian’s lurid 1992 complaint because the case “fell through the cracks.”
That’s what Monsignor William Lynn told a grand jury, according to testimony read Thursday in Lynn’s child-endangerment trial.
Lynn, the longtime secretary for clergy for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, is also charged with conspiracy for his handling of priest-abuse complaints.
The seminarian has testified that the priest, Stanley Gana, had sex with him throughout high school, and that he reported it to Lynn in 1992.
Lynn told a 2002 grand jury that Gana was not sent for a psychiatric evaluation until a 1995 complaint because the earlier case “fell through the cracks” when Lynn changed jobs.
Gana wasn’t defrocked until 2006.
The Associated Press couldn’t locate a phone listing for Gana.
Philadelphia priest abuse trial a test case for Catholic church
Msgr. William Lynn is charged with child endangerment for his role in handling abuse complaints.
By Sarah Hoye, CNN April 21st, 2012 08:00 AM ET
Philadelphia (CNN) – It's been four weeks since the beginning of the trial of the highest ranking U.S. Catholic Church leader charged with covering up the crimes of priests against children.
The main issue is not whether sex abuse occurred, as defense attorneys have pointed out, but how the Archdiocese of Philadelphia - Monsignor William Lynn in particular - handled the allegations against priests in the diocese.
The trial against Lynn and the alleged offending priest, the Rev. James Brennan, has already created a shake-up in Philadelphia's Catholic leadership, according to Catholic commentator and blogger [ http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/ ] Rocco Palmo.
"It's a shift you see once in 200 years," Palmo told CNN.
And, he adds, the trial could have a worldwide ripple effect on the entire Catholic Church, which has been rocked to its core by widespread allegations of sex abuse by priests.
Lynn, 61, who served as the secretary for clergy under former Philadelphia Archbishop Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, is charged with child endangerment for his role in handling abuse complaints, including allegations against his co-defendant, Brennan, 48, who is charged with attempting to rape a 14-year-old boy in 1996.
Both men have pleaded not guilty.
Testimony has been heated as teary witnesses take the stand describing the alleged abuse by dozens of diocesan priests during overnight stays, at vacation homes or at parish rectories.
The trial has provided a rare behind-the-scenes portrait of one of the largest Catholic archdioceses in the United States. In addition to the graphic testimony, hundreds of pages of internal personnel files of priests accused of child sexual abuse - some of them confidential - are now part of the court record.
And that could have a deeper impact on Philadelphia's Catholic community, according to David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) [ http://www.snapnetwork.org/ ].
"These revelations and disclosures have to help parishioners face the painful reality that, just like victims, they, too, have been horribly betrayed and misled," Clohessy said,
"When you see handwritten memos from very smart, high-level church officials, this unambiguous deception and selfishness really cuts through denial."
Questions over how abuse allegations were handled
Since late March, Lynn and Brennan have appeared daily before Common Pleas Judge Teresa Sarmina. Lynn, who was placed on administrative leave in February, dresses in his clerical collar, while Brennan, who was removed from active ministry in 2006 after a witness first came forward with his allegations, generally dons sport coats and trousers.
As the secretary for clergy in Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004, Lynn was responsible for the personnel matters for the more than 800 priests within the archdiocese, including investigating child sex abuse allegations against priests.
Lynn's defense team argues that the monsignor repeatedly sent word of child sex abuse up the chain of command and insists that he operated under strict orders from the archbishop - at the time, the late Cardinal Joseph Bevilacqua.
"There isn't anybody in this courthouse that would deny the sexual abuse of children is awful. Monsignor Lynn knew it was awful," Tom Bergstrom, one of Lynn's four defense attorneys, said during his opening remarks. "The evidence will show that he, and perhaps he alone, is the one who tried to correct it.
"There is proof that sexual abuse happened in the Catholic Church. We're not here to run from that," Bergstrom said.
On the contrary, the Rev. Thomas Doyle - sworn in as an expert witness on Catholicism and its canon law - told jurors there were no church laws that prohibited archdiocese officials from going to police with the allegations of child sex abuse.
"If you're acting in the name of the bishop, you're the one acting. He's not pulling strings over you," he said. "If you're doing something illegal, you can't do it even if he told you to."
That's because the church's canon law does not trump civil law, he said.
He also pointed out that, according to new church guidelines adopted in 2002 following the church scandal in Boston, any U.S. priest who admitted abuse or was found guilty by investigators immediately must be removed from active ministry.
Since the trial's March 26 start, a number of alleged victims of clergy abuse have testified. Prosecutors are using the testimony of witnesses with allegations against priests who are not on trial to build their case that Lynn knowingly shuffled predator priests to unwitting parishes.
The man, now in his 30s, is part of the 2011 grand jury report whose claim falls within Pennsylvania's statute of limitations.
The witness spent nearly two days on the stand, breaking down each time he described an overnight stay with Brennan. He is a former Marine who was discharged because of mental health issues.
"I was a little boy. I didn't know what to do," he testified through sobs. "I was scared. I was afraid that if I said no he'd kill me or something."
The mother of the alleged victim, who testified the following week, said she will never know what happened between her son and Brennan, who she said was like a brother to her.
"I'll never forgive myself," she said.
A necessary shake-up?
With nearly 1.5 million members, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is one of the largest in the nation. Priests, particularly those in high-ranking positions, have an exceptional amount of power within the Catholic Church, especially in Philadelphia because of the church's deep roots in the community.
That status quo is being turned upside down amid the current crisis, Palmo said.
"I've seen more change in the last seven months than in 20 years," Palmo said. "It's not just because of the trial; it (the Archdiocese) needed a shake-up. That call was never heeded (before)."
Philadelphia's archdiocese has placed 23 priests on administrative leave, following the release of the 2011 grand jury report.
Avery was sentenced to two and a half to five years in prison and turned himself in to authorities on April 2.
Philadelphia's priest abuse scandal has been unfolding for nearly nine years, and Palmo said the city's Catholic community is almost numb to the ongoing trial. They just want a resolution so they can move on with their lives, he said.
In fact, Catholic school closings and parish mergers in the City of Brotherly Love have eclipsed the clergy sex abuse trial, Palmo said.
"It was the schools that got people in the streets. It's one of the great ironies," he said. "People don't live Catholic identity here. They identify with their parish or school. Like politics, Catholicism is local."
Back inside Judge Teresa Sarmina's courtroom, 12 jurors and six alternates listen intently, their heads whipping between witnesses and attorneys as if they're watching a tennis match.
Gone is the throng of cameramen outside the courthouse doors (there are no cameras allowed in Pennsylvania courtrooms) who were present at the start of the trial, waiting to catch a glimpse of the defendants. Gone, too, are the rows of wooden benches crammed with reporters, and the number of public spectators has dwindled to a sparse peppering.
The trial is expected to wrap up in June, just as the trial of Penn State's former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky gets started. That trial is scheduled to start on June 5.
Both scandals represent a larger issue, according to Marci Hamilton, an attorney who has represented victims in clergy sex abuse cases - including recent suits against the Philadelphia archdiocese - as well as suits against Penn State in wake of the university's sex abuse scandal.
"I think we now know for certain that private institutions cannot be trusted to protect children on their own," Hamilton said. "I don't think it's any surprise the church was the first focus; it's the biggest institution. But they're just a cornerstone of the larger problem."
The heinous accusations against Sandusky and the priests, Hamilton said , have raised awareness nationwide about victims of child sex abuse and prevention.
"What I hope is that we will finally get past the churches and universities and start focusing on the majority of abuse, which happens within the family."
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