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.
“Please also note that in terms of slaveholding, very few Catholics ever held slaves in the US - it was a predominantly Protestant practice.”
That is not really true either as many Catholics owned slaves in the USA including the U.S. Catholic Church it’s self, maybe not as many in volume as Protestants, they still were guilty of the sin.
“Two slaveholding states, Maryland and Louisiana, had large contingents of Catholic residents; however both states had also the largest numbers of former slaves who were freed.
Archbishop of Baltimore, Maryland John Carroll, had two black servants - one free and one a slave.
The Society of Jesus in Maryland owned slaves who worked on the community’s farms. The Jesuits began selling off their slaves in 1837.
Bishop John England of Charleston actually wrote several letters to the Secretary of State under President Martin Van Buren explaining that the Pope, in In Supremo, did not condemn slavery but only the slave trade.”
“
“Which means some people believe Michael Archangel to be God.”
That’s what I was implying, but I should have been more specific and said “Jesus” instead of “God.”
“I know the Greeks give Michael a place of prominence but I’ve never read they believe him to be God.”
It’s my understanding that Jehovah’s Witnesses believe Jesus and Michael Archangel to be the same people, although they don’t believe Jesus to be God.
“Do you believe the Archangel Michael is God?”
Nope.
“Prove it. Let’s see the numbers.”
It’s common knowledge that the Catholic Church is the largest “denomination” in the world and in America.
I’ve read a lot of threads before joining.
To some extent, someone accused of some crime IS treated as potentially guilty until a trial. One is presumed innocent until proved guilty. They cannot be jailed without a trial establishing guilt.
However, for an investigation to proceed, there is going to have to be some kind of presumption of guilt and inconvenience to the person, innocent or not. There is simply no way to investigate a case and look for evidence without some kind of presumption of guilt. What the law does is protect the accused in the meantime and prevents the accuser from acting on only a presumption.
When these incidents came to light, the priests should have been immediately removed from their position while a complete and thorough and RAPID investigation is made. People in other situations where they are being investigated for some kind of crime are sometimes put on administrative leave while the investigation is ongoing. Sometimes life isn't fair.
If his innocence is established, restore him to office. If not, throw his sorry butt in jail.
But to shift those men accused of impropriety around to cover for them and protect them while they continued to do it and not investigate it further, is unconscionable.
Sadly, the Roman Catholic church has a LONG and sordid history of sexual misconduct, easily going back a thousand years. That does cut into their credibility more than a little.
If they don't like the bad publicity, they need to remember that they brought it on themselves with the way this stuff was handled. If they don't want the criticism, man up and do the right thing.
Nobody will criticize them for acting appropriately when the situation comes up, as it is bound to now and then.
If Catholics exercised more self-control and didn’t defy the RF rules, they wouldn’t be booted.
Simple.
LOL! I love it :)
That is the convenient, disgusting and incorrect defense Rome pushes out as fact when it is actually a pathetic acknowledgment that Rome has no intention of changing anything.
The RCC prefers to trash married men and fathers rather than look within to solve the corruption at the heart of its ecclesiocracy.
"Everyone does it" is not a defense, especially when that accusing finger is pointed at men and fathers. Rome is not only antagonistic toward women in general, it is equally uncomfortable with heterosexual men.
The numbers declare what Rome denies...
Thirty-seven priests accused of sexual abuse of children in one city in one diocese.
Is that astounding reality lost on members of the RCC?
That fact alone should send Roman Catholic parents to pick up their children as fast as possible and get them out of parochial schools.
37 priests in one city in one Roman Catholic diocese.
Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain." -- Ezekiel 22:25-27 "There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof.
Yeah. Right. Whatever you say.
Yeah, that explains all the Catholic caucus threads which are allowed to stand, but when non-Catholics post a caucus thread and it’s dogpiled by Catholics who scream bloody murder when a non-Catholic dares to show his face on one of THEIR threads, they DEMAND that the caucus label be removed, and it has been, even recently.
Sure. Lots of bias in favor of Protestants and Calvinists. /s
/roll eyes.
Doesn’t cut it. That doesn’t explain that there are more Catholic threads on FR.
It doesn’t matter if there are more Catholics worldwide, which is pretty debatable anyway, if there aren’t more registered users on FR posting threads.
Sure it does.
which is pretty debatable anyway
It is?
That's funny coming from a member of a church that believes you have to eat Jesus to have Him in your body to impart eternal life to you and that when you had that fight with your wife, you had to go to confession again or go to hell, directly to hell, do not pass purgatory, to not collect indulgences.
I don’t see what’s so unbelievable about my claim to have lurked a good bit before signing up.
Given that the facts are quite the opposite . . .
RC blindness to those facts is persistently mind boggling.
I listed several examples. You seem to have ignored all of them.
I guess a falsehood is easier to maintain a death grip on when one flushes great big percentages, chunks of the evidence.
Very well put.
Thx.
That fact is denied by Roman Catholics who have concocted the bizarre "treasury of merit" whereby one Roman Catholic can take some of his extra grace he doesn't need and give it to another Roman Catholic who needs it more than he does. This is the soggy foundation of the selling of indulgences.
Bartering grace. Is there no end to their anti-Scriptural vanities?
Here's a good website I just found with lots of excellent links...
"The Pope has been given the office of doling out indulgences from a heavenly bank account known as the Treasury of Merit. This treasury consists of the righteousness of Jesus, plus the excess righteousness of Mary and the Saints. Indulgences are provided for the benefit of the living, who can then transfer them to family and friends in purgatory if they wish..."
If Catholics exercised more self-control and didn’t defy the RF rules, they wouldn’t be booted.
Simple.
INDEED.
However, ‘self control’
vs
!!!!DEMANDING!!!!
that FR conform to their sensibilities and direct Vatican control . . . seems to be genetic with the RC’s.
Meant to ping you guys...
If Catholics exercised more self-control and didn’t defy the RF rules, they wouldn’t be booted.
Simple.
CORRECTION:
INDEED.
However, ‘self control’
vs
!!!!DEMANDING!!!!
that FR conform to their sensibilities and direct Vatican control . . . seems to be OUT OF THE QUESTION with !!!!DEMANDING!!!! being seemingly a genetic thing with the RC’s.
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