Posted on 03/26/2011 12:59:03 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg
At an intensely combative and vitriolic hearing Friday afternoon in a sex-abuse case that has shaken the Philadelphia Archdiocese to its core, a state court judge shocked one priest's defense attorney by disclosing that the government thinks he might be a witness as a former seminarian and could be disqualified from the case. The lawyer, who represents one of three current and former Roman Catholic priests charged with raping boys in their parish, fired back that prosecutors were being "anti-Catholic" and had uttered an "abomination."
Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes told defense attorney Richard DeSipio that she's received information that "might make you, in fact, a witness because of events that occurred while you were a seminarian."
The information "stems from the fact that you attended the seminary with a student who asserts he was abused," Hughes said, adding that DeSipio "may possess factual knowledge about abuse that occurred with that student."
She added that the substance of the claim that DiSipio witnessed something is still unclear. "I just don't know if it's true," Hughes said. "I really don't know if it's true."
Yelling and visibly upset, DeSipio demanded that the government, then and there, identify the source of the allegation. "Let them spill it out right now!" DeSipio demanded.
"How dare they send you a letter about that," DeSipio said, referring to the district attorney's office. "That's an abomination."
Prosecutors said only that part of DeSipio's seminary training overlapped with the tenure of a senior clergyman accused of endangering children by failing to protect them from priests with a known history of abuse.
Monsignor William Lynn, now pastor of St. Joseph Church in Downingtown, Pa., is reportedly the highest-ranking member of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States ever to be charged with child endangerment. Between 1984 and 1992, he served as dean of men at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa., according to his biography on St. Joseph's website. As the secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004, Lynn acted as personnel director for priests. He is accused of ignoring reports of abuse, covering up for them and putting children in danger.
"They are anti-Catholic. I'll say it," DiSipio fumed. "[The district attorney is] attacking me as a Catholic!"
The judge rejected DiSipio's claim. "Attack you? You attacked me! You don't even know me!" Hughes said, referring to a prior argument over the necessity of a preliminary hearing, another hotly contested issue Friday afternoon.
"Mr. DeSipio, I suggest you shut up," Hughes said. "People are coming from out of the woodwork [to provide information to the commonwealth.]"
If the government can prove the allegation is credible in 30 days, DeSipio will be disqualified as the archdiocese's attorney.
"You can change lawyers now, you can change lawyers in 30," the judge warned DeSipio's client, the Rev. James Brennan. "[But] there are some conflicts that are not waivable."
DeSipio argued that the 30-day investigation was "really unfair to Father Brennan," given his mounting legal costs.
Judge Hughes was livid that DeSipio spoke up again. "If you open your mouth one more time I am going to have the sheriff take you out of here," she told DeSipio.
As DeSipio continued to argue, Hughes said she might have him "locked up and held in contempt." Instead she issued a gag order, responding to what she observed as attorneys having "gone to the airways to advocate."
"No more interviews with anyone," the judge ruled.
"Does that include the DA going on Chris Matthews' 'Hardball' and going to the New York Times," defense attorney Michael McGovern asked.
The judge responded affirmatively: "I don't want tweets. I don't want Facebook. I don't want IMs [instant messages]."
Hughes said the court will revisit the gag order on April 15, when defendants are to be arraigned. That date also marks the deadline for the DA to provide the defense with the first batch of discovery, she said.
All but one of the defense attorneys challenged the government's amendment to its case, which added a conspiracy charge that had not explicitly been requested of the grand jury.
"The issue here is that if the DA seeks to amend, it has to be subject to some sort of prima facie determination," the defense argued.
The judge found otherwise, ruling that the commonwealth established "good cause" in its pleadings and that "there is no constitutional right - federal or state - for a preliminary hearing."
It was "a technical error on the commonwealth not to charge conspiracy" originally, Hughes said. "Conspiracy is made," and the defendants will not be afforded a preliminary hearing, she ruled.
Hughes said there was abundant evidence to support the amendment.
"I'm the only person, besides the prosecutors, who has seen every stitch of evidence," she said.
Defense attorney McGovern argued that her admission was precisely the problem.
"Your Honor, this is patently unfair!" McGovern said. "You know the evidence. They know the evidence. I don't know what the evidence is! I haven't seen any!"
The attorney said proceeding to trial without a preliminary hearing was like saying, "Let's have a dart game in a dark room."
"What kind of country is this where we have this?" he shouted.
The judge yelled back, baring her teeth: "You sit down! Sit, sit, sit!"
DeSipio agreed with McGovern that their clients deserve a preliminary hearing, which could allow them to confront their accusers.
"There's no witness. I know that they [the prosecutors] don't like that he's in jail," DeSipio said. "This accuser says there was an erect penis in his buttocks."
"Was it in your buttocks, or was it in your anus," he asked rhetorically. "If that question wasn't asked [of the grand jury], and he didn't specify anus or butt cheeks, I have a right to ask that."
"What you can't do, and what I submit they're trying to do, is say just because we have a grand jury, we have good cause [to by-pass a preliminary hearing]," DeSipio said.
The judge also addressed a potential conflict of interest concerning Monsignor Lynn, who unlike the three current and former priests, faces child endangerment charges - not rape or sexual assault. Plans for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to pay Lynn's legal costs present "a whole array of conflicts that I can't even imagine at this point in time," Hughes said.
"It's real simple," the judge said to Lynn, who was donning his clerical collar, "your master is the person that's putting bread on the table."
"It may be in your best interest to put forth a defense that attacks other people [or the church]," Hughes said.
She told Lynn he was putting himself in the position of receiving "advice from people who are being paid by people whose interests don't necessarily align with yours."
The stakes of this gamble could amount to "14 years of incarceration versus probation," she said.
Lynn, in a calm voice, declined. "Well, I trust these two men." he said, adding that the church hadn't placed any conditions on the payment of his legal costs.
Hughes was incredulous. "You are making a knowing, voluntary and intelligent decision to place yourself in conflict with your attorneys?" she asked.
"I am," Lynn responded, waiving his right to any future appeal based on the argument that his attorneys had a conflict of interest.
"Then we're moving forward," the judge said.
After arraignments and release of the first batch of discovery, which will include grand jury notes and testimony, on April 15, the government will begin putting together a second batch. The government said that batch would take longer to produce, as it will include roughly 10,000 pages of documentation, much of which will need to be redacted.
Hughes said the government must give the defense a specific timeline for the production of the second batch. "There has to be some finality," she said.
In January, a grand jury returned an indictment for rape and sexual assault against one current priest, one defrocked priest and one man who taught at a Catholic school. Monsignor Lynn, the third cleric who worked for the archdiocese as secretary of clergy, is accused of giving known abusers easy access to minors.
Hotmail is generally for formatting, not grammatical errors. Can you point out any grammatical errors of mine, not that I doubt you at all. I'm not the most scrupulous about checking my tenses and subject verb agreement, but I don't see how html would help with any of that.
Most often we see the "consenting teenage boy defense" or the "gay priest defense*". It is good to see a Roman Catholic dust off another equally lame defense every once in a while.
lol. Any shot in the dark will do, just as long as it's fired away from Rome.
“Open Firefox, which has Google News set as my home page. 2 seconds.
Type the term “Catholic Priest” 2 seconds
Hit enter. 0.5 seconds.
Wait for results. 1-2 seconds.
Wow, that took all of 5.5-6.5 seconds!”
___________________________________________
lol. Approx. 6 seconds and hundreds if not thousands of results about the Roman Catholic pederast priest scandal.
CATHOLICS RAPING CHILDREN
than your own misconceptions in the Presbyterian Church
AMEN!
But where's the sport in that?
In a thread full of dumb Presbyterian statements, this is a standout dumb statement. How can you guarantee a vote in a secret ballot?
Only the really dumb ones. How can somebody 'guarantee' the secret vote of another? And what does that guarantee consist of? And what does that make somebody who praises said dumb statement?
May your envy lead you to desire the truth.
I should have been more specific and said punctuation errors which are a type of grammatical error, but are more exact as to the nature of your mistakes.
Read the article that begins this thread. That is what some people are trying to do on this thread.
Other people litter the thread with all sorts of nutty deflections and comical/bogus/vile tangents which do nothing to further the debate.
Which is exactly their intent.
Let's see. About.com. Why not link to Wiki? All right, let's see what this is all about.
About.com gives its source as http://www.religionfacts.com/religion_statistics/religion_statistics_by_country.htm. Religionfacts.com? They post a comparison by country. Where is their source?
The CIA Factbook (text only, no link). Where is the link? Where is the study and the methodology? What year was it published? No information. My good Doctor, you fail again. Let's push further into the molasses.
http://www.religionfacts.com/religion_statistics/american_religious_identification_survey.htm gives the top level stats of what they purport is a collection of three studies. What is the source? Again, text only: Source: The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) was conducted in 2008.
Interesting. ARIS was the source for the CUNY study. There is no methodology listed - these liberal sites that you Presbyterians like are either amateur or deliberately obfuscating. But let's see what the numbers shake out to be.
Since you've performed a grand mal seizure waving a victory hanky about in terms of how much more the Protestants (of whatever ilk) number versus the Catholics, let us see what that means in the studies.
In 1990, Protestants in the US outnumbered the Catholics by 2.3 to 1. In 2008, Protestants in the US outnumbered the Catholics by 2.0 to 1. So your claims based upon on your own selected study says that you are dead wrong. Catholics are increasing compared to Protestants. Nice fail.
Let us see how that applies to Presbyterians. In 1990, Catholics outnumbered the Presbyterians by 9.2 to 1. In 2008, Catholics outnumbered the Presbyterians by 12.1 to 1. More fantastic fail - Catholics increased 33% compared to Presbyterians.
My good Doctor, what exactly are you attempting to prove here? That even you cannot find sources to prove your claims? Actually you are proving our claims quite nicely. Thank you.
May the Presbyterian envy of the complete dictatorial control not lead them to liberal Democratic practices of being able to guarantee the outcomes of secret balloting which is a fundamental practice in the free United States of America. This is not the tyrannical command and control of Calvin pitted against the good burghers of Geneva.
Mark, while you may interpret Lumen Gentum as rejecting all outside Catholicism as Christians(?), to relegate data on Catholicism as being an unclean or contrived thing due to its negativity or lack of research on your account is unwarranted in this respect, if not uncommon. While stats can be misused, and a slight margin of error is assumed, the reality is that multitudes of comparative demographical studies (http://www.peacebyjesus.com/RC-Stats_vs._Evang.html), and every study i have ever seen, including Catholic sponsored ones, shows RCs to overall being more liberal in faith and morals than their evangelical counterparts. And which other data concurs with.
In addition, they also testify to spiritual declension among Protestants and evangelicals in general.
Rather than impugning the credibility of such reports, some conservative RCs as well as evangelicals invoke them in warning against spiritual declension, which is the more reasonable response.
As for the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, info on that is easily obtained, and is done by the the "Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. The Pew Research Center does this by conducting public opinion polling and social science research; by analyzing news coverage; and by holding forums and briefings. It does not take positions on policy issues." http://pewforum.org/Pew-Forum/About-the-Pew-Forum.aspx The 143 page Landscape Survey (http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf) is based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, a very large representational population sample as compared with other studies.
Can you point out to any specific mistakes, not that I am denying that there are any?
To get the ball rolling, I'll point out that you should have put a comma after the word "errors."
“In a thread full of dumb Presbyterian statements, this is a standout dumb statement. How can you guarantee a vote in a secret ballot? “
Your hostility is noted. Of course I can’t know for SURE. I just believe what people tell me.
Thanks for sharing that. I had never heard that before, and it's good to know.
The PCUSA is so wildly out of control with its liberalism that it's practically a branch of the democrat party, as is the UCC and other mainline denominations.
The OPC and the PCA are conservative. No abortion, gay marriage or gay pastors...
I am an engineer. I prefer data that is untainted by its gatherers. I detest experiments that are designed to point the outcome in one direction or another, or to come to a prearranged conclusion. Whatever my interpretation of Lumen Gentium, I will accept untainted data and unbiased analyses and will not accept either sloppy or deliberately misleading conclusions.
While stats can be misused, and a slight margin of error is assumed, the reality is that multitudes of comparative demographical studies (http://www.peacebyjesus.com/RC-Stats_vs._Evang.html), and every study i have ever seen, including Catholic sponsored ones, shows RCs to overall being more liberal in faith and morals than their evangelical counterparts. And which other data concurs with.
If you have a good scientifically designed and performed study, by all means, trot it out and let's have a look at it. I will repeat: I am no advocating the CUNY study, I merely prefer it or one managed in like manner because I will have confidence in its outcome.
Rather than impugning the credibility of such reports, some conservative RCs as well as evangelicals invoke them in warning against spiritual declension, which is the more reasonable response.
The reasonable response is to gather and use accurate data in order to arrive at a realistic world view and the truth. If Catholics are shrinking in the US for real, I will accept it. However, everything that has been trotted out by my opponents has been bereft of facts, methodology, and design to eliminate biased conclusions; an interesting side note is that even those waved about give different results than those waving them about are claiming.
As for the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, info on that is easily obtained, and is done by the the "Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.
I see that you are shilling for Pew, now. Pew is non partisan in the same manner that Media Matters is non partisan, or The Huffington Post is non partisan. Or PBS, for that matter.
Find a good pollster with a good and open data set, methodology, and analysis and let's talk. That way we can discuss totals, percentages and trends. In an objective fashion.
Certainly, to a degree. However, there has been shrill objection to church rolls by the Presbyterians here, since they claim that the Catholic Church is padding the rolls.
The CUNY poll puts everything on the responses of the surveyees, and eliminates any influence of the church institutions and their current rolls.
Your hostility is noted. Of course I can’t know for SURE.
You made the statement that you guaranteed the outcome of a secret ballot in the federal election of the United States in 2008. The only people that I know that can guarantee the outcome of secret ballots are third world dictators and Chicago Democrats. Which group do you claim to belong to?
I just believe what people tell me.
Believe me when I tell you that conservative Presbyterian churches do not practice Christianity as defined by the Nicene Creed or by the Bible. Now what are you going to do?
“You made the statement that you guaranteed the outcome of a secret ballot in the federal election of the United States in 2008. “
Don’t be ridiculous. I told you that no one in my congregation voted for Obama. Unless they lied, they didn’t. You’re freaking out unnecessarily.
And no women pastors in the OPC and PCA.
Pray that the PCUSA presbyteries will vote down the General Assembly’s recommendation to admit practicing homosexuals into the ministry. They’ve voted it down every time it has come up, but homosexuals are relentless.
If the PCUSA okays this abomination, the PCA and OPC will reap the righteous rewards of what the PCUSA has sowed in shame.
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