aren't you?
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.
It didn’t look like sarcasm. That statement has been made dozens of times by RCs on this forum.
WPC: I don’t need one. Who am I to judge God’s Church?
So much material, so little time....
How do you know that what the Catholic church teaches is correct then? Or do you just presume that if it's uttered by someone in the Vatican that it's truth?
If that's the case, you are indeed judging the church and you are using some criteria by which to do that.
Judging occurs whether the judgment is *good* or *bad*. If you've decided that the Catholic church is right, you have indeed judged it.
So your question is meaningless.
There is no Pew study that you posted. You posted a reference by the Washington Times about a reference of Pew talking about a third group who made some claims. You have not presented any facts - you talk about the claims, but no facts.
Present a study with facts and we can discuss it. Present this, and it is just like all the other liberal media that you quote (as long as it is antiCatholic) - bereft of facts, but brimming with unsubstantiated claims.
You make a claim? Prove it with facts. Your attacks on the Church are mostly hysterical claims; your 'studies' and the false claims that you post about other subjects such as impugning the character of conservative groups in your haste to trash the Church do not allow us to ignore these bleatings. Put up facts, not claims. Your 'facts' are as made up as your doctrines.
I don't care if you have trouble with finding a source to back up your wild claims; either retract your claims or find proofs for them. We are not going to do your homework for you. You claimed it. You prove it.
Comparing Catholicism to a comic book is a refreshing acknowledgment of the truth from a Catholic.
If you and other Catholics choose to not believe what really goes in in Catholic churches around the country, you are certainly free to do so, but the problems that exist within the Catholic church will never be seriously addressed and dealt with as long as Catholics continue to stick their heads in the sand and deny reality, that is what is really going on in the parishes and lives of lay Catholics across the country.
Every time ex-Catholics point out inconsistencies between Catholic tradition and the CCC, and Scripture, the knee jerk reaction is always the same, name calling and epitaphs of *Catholic hater* and *anti-Catholic*.
You don't suppose that if so many ex-Catholics who lived in different areas of the country and never knew each other can relate the same accounts of what goes on in the Catholic church, that there just might be some truth to it?
Nah, I suppose it's expecting too much to think that Catholics just might consider trying to take a good hard, objective look at their church as non-Catholics see it.
Yeah, I know enough to get your number. Now, BE GONE.
Metmom, I’m not going to respond to your false dichotomy until you admit that you misquoted me in post 944 and pinged many other people to your false statement. Here is your post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2695139/posts?page=944#944
You claimed that I said what HossB86 really said. I was quoting him. It’s there for everybody to see. Everyone can go back and follow the conversation and see that you misquoted me. I am asking you to admit your mistake, apologize to me, and ping all of the people you pinged in post 944 to your admission of error and apology.
I am willing to be merciful and not make fun of your mistake, but I’ve already asked for you to apologize once, and you have not complied. Until then, I am not going to reply to you about any other subject.
You must have hit a nerve to elicit a response like that.
Who cares about Bill Maher any more than anyone cares about Charlie Sheen?
It matters when you’re questioning my conservative credentials.
Newbie.
>> Show us the evidence, please <<
I told you precisely where I got the statistics.
>> Because those figures contradict the Barna Group in 2007 <<
Barna is fundamentalist outfit with no clientele other then themselves who report nothing but their own self interest. The same Barna people will report that alternately that fundamentalist churches are exploding, and that Christianity is nearly extinct. Contrarily, while I find the NCC politics deplorable, their data is based on actual church membership statistics, not a random poll of selected individuals.
As for your Gallup article, the actual poll in question shows that the “Protestant” groups with the highest attendance are Church of Christ (i.e., Barry Obama), Mormons, and Pentecostalists. Your newspaper report spun the article in a grossly deceitful way. “Other Protestants” rank at 61. Your beloved Calvinist was actually BELOW Catholic attendance.
But now, think of this: If only 26% of Americans actually belong to a Protestant Church, but 70% of Americans regard themselves as Protestants, than it stands to reason that the proportion of church-going Protestants to Protestant church members is going to be very high. So the gallup poll showing high church attendance rates PER DENOMINATION is actually consistent both with low overall church attendance AND low membership statistics.
Not really. You could have easily just laid low this whole time or pretended to be conservative. Just because you have not been zotted does not make you conservative.
Newbie.
If you think calling me "newbie" is accomplishing anything, just keep on going ahead.
On this thread we all know who is “winning!”
aren't you?
I do believe this post could qualify as “making it personal”.
Metmom, I’m not going to respond to your false dichotomy until you admit that you misquoted me in post 944 and pinged many other people to your false statement. Here is your post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2695139/posts?page=944#944
You claimed that I said what HossB86 really said. I was quoting him. It’s there for everybody to see. Everyone can go back and follow the conversation and see that you misquoted me. I am asking you to admit your mistake, apologize to me, and ping all of the people you pinged in post 944 to your admission of error and apology.
I am willing to be merciful and not make fun of your mistake, but I’ve already asked for you to apologize twice, and you have not complied. Until then, I am not going to reply to you about any other subject.
Nope. Just making an observation of fact.
should be "you" instead
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
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