Church scandal hits close to home

John P. Martin
 Philadelphia Inquirer
 July 1, 2012

 The Father Lynn I knew was no monster.

I actually liked him.

I explained as much to my editors at The Inquirer when they assigned me last year to cover the landmark prosecution of Msgr. William J. Lynn over his handling of child-sex abuse complaints within the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Lynn had been my assistant pastor at St. Katharine of Siena in Wayne 30 years ago.

He gave me Communion and heard my confessions, and did the same with my parents and siblings. He supervised our parish Catholic Youth Organization when I was a CYO officer and routinely gave me keys to the parish gym so my friends and I could play basketball on summer nights. He was chaplain at Archbishop Carroll High School when I was a senior.

The Lynn I remember was a plump, affable guy who smiled a lot when he talked. I even recall a few of our conversations, including when a friend and I asked why he became a priest. Lynn said he had a calling he tried to ignore — but couldn't.

He was barely 30 then.

I had not seen him in decades, but I alerted my editors in case any thought our past ties might constitute a conflict of interest. None did.

In fact, several colleagues shared their own links or encounters with priests tainted in the scandal.

That's one of the things that struck me about this case: I can't recall a story where so many people had so few degrees of separation.

It is nearly impossible to have been raised Catholic in this region and not know or have crossed paths with someone touched by the abuse — a victim, a priest, an investigator, an advocate.

In the last decade, nearly 100 archdiocesan priests have been publicly accused, suspended, or defrocked. Many had multiple assignments, some in a half-dozen or more parishes or schools.

.................

The 2005 and 2011 grand jury reports portrayed Lynn in the most sinister of terms, not for abusing children himself but for allegedly doing little, or at least not enough, about priests who did. They said he dragged his feet on complaints, never bothered to search for other victims — even when he knew their names — and on a few occasions suggested to accused priests they weren't at fault.

According to his memos, Lynn told them they may have been seduced.

By grade-school altar boys.

..........

Catholics filled the prosecution table, the judge's bench, and a few defense chairs. Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington, who hammered Lynn during cross-examination and delivered the commonwealth's closing argument, was a North Catholic High School grad whose uncle spent years as the driver for Cardinals John Krol and Bevilacqua.

Several journalists at the trial shared their own interactions with now-disgraced priests. Sometimes, we discovered ties we never knew.

I won't forget the day prosecutors called a middle-aged man as their next witness.

The reporter sitting next to me was stunned. "I know him," he said. They had grown up together near Norristown, he explained.

Over the next 20 minutes, the witness described being abused by his parish priest, Francis Trauger, when he was 12. He said Trauger took him to St. Charles Borromeo Seminary one weekend to play basketball and molested him in the showers.

Months later, the priest took him to the Poconos to go skiing. They ended up naked in a motel room for a night that seemed to never end, now seared in his memory. For decades, he told no one.

On the witness stand, the man spoke softly but deliberately, struggling to finish without breaking down. His testimony was haunting.

Next to me, the reporter pulled a tissue from his pocket and dabbed his eyes.

Nearly 20 other victims testified. Most were adults in their 40s, 50s, or 60s.

Others watched from afar. Routinely during the trial, I got messages from readers describing their own ties to the names and allegations they were reading in print.

"We all knew about Father Cannon," one wrote about John Cannon, a priest who sneaked into cabins at a church camp to fondle boys in the 1950s and 1960s and later agreed to a restricted ministry.

...........

"I went to school with Murtha. ... We are all shocked," one said about the Rev. Michael Murtha, who remained an active parish priest until 2007 after writing a sexually graphic fantasy letter to a seventh-grade altar boy 12 years earlier.

...............

Read entire article at the Philadelphia Inquirer