Four men, including three Catholic priests, were arrested in Philadelphia for allegedly raping and assaulting boys. Most notably, a former official in the Philadelphia Archdiocese was also arrested for his role in facilitating the abuse by failing to stop the priests — a charge that could be replicated in other cases involving the Church.
Father Edward Avery, 68, and Father Charles Engelhardt, 64, were charged with allegedly assaulting a 10-year-old boy at St. Jerome Parish from 1998 to 1999. Father James Brennan, another priest, is accused of assaulting a different 14-year-old boy in 1996. In addition, Bernard Shero, 48, a teacher in the school, is charged with allegedly assaulting the same boy involved in the Avery and Engelhardt charges in 2000.
The most interesting charge was that of Monsignor William Lynn, who served as the Secretary for Clergy for the under former Philadelphia Archbishop Anthony Bevilacqua. He was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child in connection with the alleged assaults. Lynn, 60, allegedly endangered the children by not preventing access to these victims by these men despite his knowledge of the allegations in his role as lead investigator of abuse allegations. This could be the most difficult to prove but the most significant precedent that would come from the case.
The accounts below state that “The grand jury believed that over 30 priests have remained in ministry in Pennsylvania despite solid, credible allegations of abuse.” Even with the past scandals, that is a shocking number.
The men are accused of raping alter boys and others boys in their care in cars, parks, their bedrooms, and other locations.
“By no means do we believe that these are the only two parishioners who were abused during this period,” Williams wrote in the grand jury report.
James Brennan, 47, allegedly used his access as a family friend to rape a 14-year-old. When confronted by the parents, he denied the allegations. The boy later committed suicide.
Jonathan Turley
Frikken pigs!! Castrate them.
You will find none of this at The Church of the Fonz and that is why I worship there. AAAAYYYYYYY!!!!
All the talk about the Catholic Church here misses how widespread this is across faiths. An Episcopal diocese in Kentucky recently wound up on the losing side in court for doing what Catholic dioceses often have done. The fundamentalist/evangelical community is rife with examples of sexual abuse (e.g., Rev Eddie Long in Atlanta).
The “celibate” clergy and the hierarchical nature of the RCC pose particular issues in combating abuse and bringing abusers to justice. The same dynamics and same problems are present in some Buddhist organizations–there has been a tremendous undermining of the monkhood’s authority and stature in Thailand because of this. OTOH, the independent nature of many evangelical Protestant churches makes it even easier to do something about allegations and this sort of thing is no stranger to mainline denominations.
A fundamental problem with clergy is that moral authority is thrust on them at an early age after an often cloistered upbringing through seminaries or Bible colleges. these are people who know not themselves or the world and are ill equipped to deal with their own selves, while becoming socialized into a system where clergy have a rationalization for everything because of their special status and the aura of authority attached to them.
S M
Believe me, if my in-laws knew of any, I’d have been told. They are all ex-Catholics, if someone can actually achieve that status.
BIL
Yeah, cash, also. Still I wouldn’t want them to miss the lowest circle possible which is surely reserved for them.
“Doubt” was a great movie, and I never did decide if the priest was guilty. Kids were hit at my school, but never heard of sexual abuse of any kind either at home or the parish. Those things were kept secret back then, and that allowed the perpetrators to keep engaging in the abuse.
Buckeye,
I don’t know how much Hell you can get out of them, but you sure can get some cash.
As the world’s first multi-national corporation, the RCC is loaded.
Paying a LOT of penance would do them some good.
rafflaw
None of my Catholic in-laws experienced sexual abuse (lots of the other – rulers’ contact with fingers, etc) nor did they know of any. I suspect this only flourishes in conditions that allow it to flourish – like mushrooms growing in manure.
The most interesting, as JT states, is finally the ability to punish those responsible for allowing this abuse to continue unabated until the lawsuits started. Sue the hell out of them, if that’s possible.
Buckeye,
Doubt was a great movie. It reminded me of my Catholic grade school days in the 50’s and early 60’s. I do wonder what the good Benedictine Nuns knew about the Priest abuse, because I just can’t imagine that they would sit back and let it happen without blowing the whistle. I do not know of any allegations of abuse from our parish, but they could still be buried somewhere at the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Methinks the difficulty with knowing good and bad is that they are actually unknowable for a simple reason.
Knowing is of declaratives.
Good and Bad are of procedures.
If there is something to be done and it can be done well, that is good.
If there is something to be done and it can only be done poorly in order to learn how to do it better, that is good.
If there is something to be done and it is not done, that is bad.
Good and bad now explained.
Learn vacuum tube electronics, build some vacuum tube electronic things, use them for a while, and when they don’t work so well, get a tube tester, test the tubes, and learn which tubes are good when used in particular electronic things and which are bad when so used.
Didn’t learn electronics rather like in the way I did? Your loss is not my gain.
I find it tragically intersting to read comment after comment in which intensional and extensional meanings are scrambled in accord with mirror-neuron-propagated social conventions and in which declarative and procedural brain functions are comparably scrambled.
To remain a viable person, I needs be spend most of my time and effort on the far side of that one-step-long wormhole from where most of these comments are being born…
My Catholic in-laws and I all recently viewed the movie “Doubt” which deals with this subject in a slightly different way. What was so unusual was each person’s different take on what “doubt” meant to the doubter.
If you’re interested in other people’s take on things, it’s an interesting exercise and a very well done movie. We hadn’t had such individual views about the meaning of things in a movie since “2001” back in the sixties. Of course we hadn’t seen that many movies since then ’cause we were all in the child-rearing years – Gyges, take note.
Gyges,
I agree with Blouise. Lots of luck on both counts!
JamesFiller,
These priests are innocent until proven guilty, but when their superiors hide the allegations from the police as they have, you should be able to understand our collective disgust over even more examples of the Catholic Church violating God’s law and criminal law in hiding child abusers. How many real “innocents” must be abused and killed by these felons before you will realize not only what the priests did, but what the Church did to hide these heinous crimes?
Gyges
1, February 11, 2011 at 1:37 pm
Hmmm so a large organization that actively hides and excuses its members crimes is likely to have people in it that keep committing those crimes?
I wonder if President Obama knows about this?
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lol … good one
“I always wondered what that saying meant…’Crossing the Rubicon’”
It referes to Caessar crossing a river named the Rubicon in Italy (the river is north of Rome) with his leigions and thereby becoming the first Roman general to have military under his control within the home province. This was specifically not allowed by Roman law at the time for fear of a military coup.
So the phrase can be taken to mean that after a certain movement past an agreed or assumed point all bets are off.
Woosty,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubicon.
It has the same origin as “the die has been cast.”
I always wondered what that saying meant…’Crossing the Rubicon’
Anytime power is used to exploit is an ugly betrayal but towards children….hard to imagine who could even have the capacity. Power does not belong in the hands of those with weak wills or weak minds…..
W=c,
“[T]here are only so many cheeks to turn before even the most peace loving soul gets angry!”
It has been my experience that there are only so many cheeks to turn before anger – and retribution – are simply the appropriate response. Once the Rubicon is crossed, there is no going back. Preying upon children is just such a river.
James in LA:
I am not badgering Woosty about this, she made a statement about not knowing what good and bad are and that God only can know.
I think we here on earth can know as well and I think what these priests did was extremely bad, evil is more like it.
Prof. Turley wrote:
The most interesting charge was that of Monsignor William Lynn, who served as the Secretary for Clergy for the under former Philadelphia Archbishop Anthony Bevilacqua. He was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child in connection with the alleged assaults. Lynn, 60, allegedly endangered the children by not preventing access to these victims by these men despite his knowledge of the allegations in his role as lead investigator of abuse allegations. This could be the most difficult to prove but the most significant precedent that would come from the case.
—————————————
I hope that the evidence here is very, very strong. If this can serve as the first of a series of prosecutions in this vein of holding leadership to account for their actions (and inaction), then this case could do a great deal of good.
Treating these cases as isolated instances of individuals harming children is better than nothing, but it’s crucial for the reform of organizations like the RCC that their leaders be held responsible when they hide criminal activity by either shuffling offenders around in the organization and/or discouraging members from reporting crimes.
I hope this case is solid, and doesn’t turn into a weak, botched PR disaster that would discourage future, similar prosecutions.
Hmmm so a large organization that actively hides and excuses its members crimes is likely to have people in it that keep committing those crimes?
I wonder if President Obama knows about this?