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Catholic Sex Abuse Hearing Descends Into `Shut Up' Order and Charge of 'Abomination'
Courthouse News Service ^ | March 25, 2011 | Reuben Kramer

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.


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To: Cronos

Correct. None of those statements is ‘preaching hatred.’

Let’s examine: “Pentecostalism is a damnable heresy.”

If Pentecostalism does actually lead anyone to go to hell, it is damnable, and heretical. The quoted is not a statement that shows a desire that anyone actually go to hell, which would be malicious. It is a statement of fact based upon the presuppositions that Pentecostalism is untrue, and that false doctrine, when relied upon for eternal salvation, fails to properly instruct one to the narrow path.


1,281 posted on 03/30/2011 6:11:30 AM PDT by esquirette ("Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee." ~ Augustine)
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To: esquirette; Quix; daniel1212; Dr. Eckleburg
Let’s examine: “Pentecostalism is a damnable heresy.”

If Pentecostalism does actually lead anyone to go to hell, it is damnable, and heretical.

Now the question is -- IS Pentecostalism a damnable heresy? Evidently the OPC believes it and the posts of Dr. E and other OPC/PCA members confirms this and directly evidences what you stated namely Hate is a feeling of enmity directed at another.

The quoted is not a statement that shows a desire that anyone actually go to hell, which would be malicious. It is a statement of fact based upon the presuppositions that Pentecostalism is untrue, and that false doctrine, when relied upon for eternal salvation, fails to properly instruct one to the narrow path. -- Quite on the contrary, this is based on the utter belief of the OPC that Pentecostals are going to hell -- which is used as the source of enimity in the posts of the person to whom I directed the posts.

1,282 posted on 03/30/2011 6:18:13 AM PDT by Cronos (Christians&OPC/PCA donÂ’t worship the same God:Our's is love, theirs predestines ppl 2eternal tormen)
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To: Cronos; Dr. Eckleburg

Correct. These statements are not ‘preaching hatred.’

How can the OPC say “John Wesley preached Universal Infant Damnation for unbaptized infants — which is unsurprising, because Wesley preached the Gospel of Satan” and that NOT be considered hate?

Assuming ‘the OPC’ said that, the statement is not preaching hatred. The statement is another conclusion based upon the assumption that John Wesley necessarily had to believe, as a result of his free will beliefs, that if a person cannot ‘choose Christ,’ and infants are unable to comprehend the Gospel, it necessarily follows that unbaptized infants would be damned. Election actually takes care of that, teaching that infants, as others, are chosen as God chooses others, and no work is required to save them. Again, if Wesley preached another Gospel, whose work would he be doing?

These statements are not wishing ill upon anyone, which would be hate speech. They are conclusions based upon what the speaker assumes to be true, i.e. orthodoxy.


1,283 posted on 03/30/2011 6:20:19 AM PDT by esquirette ("Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee." ~ Augustine)
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To: Cronos; Dr. Eckleburg

“Quite on the contrary, this is based on the utter belief of the OPC that Pentecostals are going to hell — which is used as the source of enimity in the posts of the person to whom I directed the posts.”

I will repeat. This statement is a conclusion based upon belief, not ‘preaching hate.’ The wise might even see it as a warning, which would be downright constructive to those who are basing their eternity upon the wrong thing.


1,284 posted on 03/30/2011 6:23:13 AM PDT by esquirette ("Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee." ~ Augustine)
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To: Cronos; Dr. Eckleburg; Quix

You mean ordering OPC members to not celebrate with Jews is not hate?

Correct. This statement is not preaching hate.

First, you must mis-characterize the link to make your point, which weakens your cause. There was no ‘order’ to OPC members. There was a ‘should not.’ Second, the reasoning is like this - Christ is our passover. It is a lie to endorse a celebration which has been fulfilled by celebrating Seder.

It is not hate, but actually an exhortation to truth.


1,285 posted on 03/30/2011 6:28:23 AM PDT by esquirette ("Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee." ~ Augustine)
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To: esquirette

. . . another . . . eye of the beholder . . . issue, imho.


1,286 posted on 03/30/2011 7:13:03 AM PDT by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: Quix

Perhaps, but it is not preaching hatred and it was not an ‘order.’


1,287 posted on 03/30/2011 7:30:04 AM PDT by esquirette ("Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee." ~ Augustine)
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To: presently no screen name
say your prayers to the dead, their spirits are waiting for you.

Funny how you say it like that. Do you have any firsthand experience with these "spirits?"

1,288 posted on 03/30/2011 7:39:24 AM PDT by WPaCon (Obama: pansy progressive, mad Mohammedan, or totalitarian tyrant? Or all three?)
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To: esquirette

Well put.


1,289 posted on 03/30/2011 7:47:10 AM PDT by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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To: Cronos; esquirette; Dr. Eckleburg; Quix
nothing that teachs one to hate?

You mean ordering OPC members to not celebrate with Jews is not hate?

You want to see what teaching hate is?

"During the Reformation, in 1555, Pope Paul IV decreed that all Jews must be segregated into their own quarters (ghettos), and they were forbidden to leave their home during the night, were banned from all but the most strenuous occupations and had to wear a distinctive badge — a yellow hat.

Jews could not own any property outside the ghetto. They were not allowed to study in higher education institutions or become lawyers, pharmacists, painters, politicians, notaries or architects. Jews were forced to pay for Christian missionaries who proselytized to the Jews and a yearly sum to the Cloister of the Converted.

These anti-Jewish laws were similar to those imposed by Nazi Germany on the Jews during World War II.

"Unfortunately for the Jews, one of Carnival’s [that is, the public celebrations prior to Lent] most popular features was the ritual degradation of the people of the ghetto.

Among the first historical references we have to such rites is a description from 1466, when for the amusement of the Romans, in festivities sponsored by Pope Paul II, Jews were made to race naked through the streets of the city. ...Before they were to run, the Jews were richly fed, so as to make the race more difficult for them, and at the same time, more amusing for the spectators. They ran from the Arch of Domitian to the Church of St. Mark at the end of the Corso at full tilt, amid Rome’s taunting shrieks of encouragement and peals of laughter, while the Holy Father stood upon a richly ornamented balcony and laughed heartily.

Two centuries later, these practices, now deemed indecorous and unbefitting the dignity of the Holy City, were stopped by Clement IX. In their place the Pope assessed a heavy tax on the Jews to help pay the costs of the city’s Carnival celebrations.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Rome.html
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/02/popes-against-jews-part-5-you-will.html

1,290 posted on 03/30/2011 7:53:26 AM PDT by bkaycee
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To: bkaycee; Cronos; Dr. Eckleburg; Quix

Still, these are acts, not beliefs. Espousing a belief is not hate, even if it means other beliefs are wrong. Acting upon it may be hate, but the exclusivity of a belief is not preaching hate. Therefore, you make the point.


1,291 posted on 03/30/2011 8:09:46 AM PDT by esquirette ("Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee." ~ Augustine)
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To: Cronos
Can't you just let me slink away and die quietly?

I'm reminded of a friend of mine, a very devout and newly minted minister, who lived near the Ind. University campus in Bloomington, Ind.
A student gave him some sweat shirts that had a funny design, rather like ink blot test pattern but in color, on the front.
He didn't realize that the “design” was really a common obscene suggestion disguised until he met some of the congregation and someone had the mercy to take him aside and point it out to him.
He went home and burned the shirts including the one he wore turned inside out. Of course he was never allowed to forget it and he accepted no more shirts with funny designs on them.
p.s. he's long dead so he won't mind my telling what happened.

1,292 posted on 03/30/2011 9:09:07 AM PDT by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: bkaycee; Cronos; esquirette; Quix
Thanks for that informative post about papist anti-Semitism.

The Roman Catholics kicked the Jews out of England and the Protestants under Cromwell brought them back in. That pattern has remained fairly consistent for centuries...

"THE POPES AGAINST THE JEWS
THE VATICAN'S ROLE IN THE RISE OF MODERN ANTI-SEMITISM"
by David Kertzer

1,293 posted on 03/30/2011 9:33:38 AM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: Dr. Eckleburg

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm


1,294 posted on 03/30/2011 3:31:48 PM PDT by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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Comment #1,295 Removed by Moderator

To: flaglady47; Dr. Eckleburg
You repeat your stock comment “did you read the news article”, but that doesn’t work with those that are on to your act.

Seems that 'stock comment' would be very important to those interested in getting to the truth. They don't read what is presented, yet, are the first in line to attack and ridicule the articles. ANd then proceed to call anyone who actually comments on the articles as bigots. It says more about the actions of those whose only mission in life is to defend the indefensible, at any cost. Pawns worthy of their reputations.

1,296 posted on 03/30/2011 7:37:22 PM PDT by smvoice (The Cross was NOT God's Plan B.)
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Comment #1,297 Removed by Moderator

To: dangus; Dr. Eckleburg; MarkBsnr; irishtenor; RnMomof7; presently no screen name; topcat54; ...

Just to be perfectly clear... I have never been a Catholic, and I have never been anti-Catholic. I believe there will be a LARGE number of Catholics in heaven with me. I, however, have found few Catholics who believe I will be with them in heaven, because I do not belong to their church.


1,298 posted on 03/30/2011 10:42:01 PM PDT by irishtenor (Everything in moderation, however, too much whiskey is just enough... Mark Twain)
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To: irishtenor

Sorry, Irish. I thought you said you had been raised RC.

lol. You must have gotten pretty tired of me including you in that group whenever I pinged you to it. I’ll be more careful next time. 8~)


1,299 posted on 03/30/2011 10:58:29 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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To: bkaycee

How horrible! The history of the vatican is deplorable - the evil empire.


1,300 posted on 03/30/2011 11:40:37 PM PDT by presently no screen name
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