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.
“For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion. “ (Ecclesiastes 9:4)
I try telling the anti-Catholic evangelists that they would be more effective if their lies were actually believable.
If it was your son you would not be praying for the pedophile priests.
I can't believe how low some will stoop to protect their sinners.
* The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance... So that men will say, "Surely there is a reward for the righteous; Surely He is God who judges in the earth." Ps. 58:10-11
* Let grace be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness... Isa. 26:10
======================================================
* And Jesus said to him, "See that you tell no one; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded as a testimony to them." Mat. 8:4
The gift/show is not dropping your drawers, it is honoring the 10 commandments.
The issue is whether or not Protestants are heretics ~ which, per se, they are not.
One cannot be both a witnesses in a trial and an advocate and any appearance that they might be one eliminates their position as the other.
Isn’t that what the judge was saying? and No, and it wasn’t denied.
If the judge has some charges to make she should get on it ~ and let another judge run this trial. This particular conflict between a judge and a lawyer goes to the heart of our system of jurisprudence. The judge doesn't work for Spain and the lawyer doesn't work for the Mafia (that we know of). Yet, the judge has acted pretty much like a Spanish or Italian magistrate.
All I can say is WOW. Anyone know her connection to the suit against the Boy Scouts?
Yes, it is indeed just that—a shame.
How easy it is to forget that each of us must account for every idle word—and most especially words which do not honor truth.
It's just never ending, this abomination known as "the one and only true Church". This vile system that "the gates of hell" won't prevail against. The only place who "holds the keys to the kingdom", and in whom we MUST place our trust if we ever hope to receive salvation. One faith, one body, one hope.
If I thought this was truth, and this is what God sent His only begotten Son to die for... There isn't even a word to describe the hopelessness I would feel.
So a compromise position would probably be to remove the judge, remove the defense counsel, remove the prosecutor (I have problems with the Philadelphia crowd as I've said several times) and the way to do that is to change the venue ~ hopefully to some place where they aren't otherwise preoccupied with protecting pedophilia.
“He should have declared a mistrial.”
How can there be a mistrial when there hasn’t even been an arraignement yet?
“The judge and the prosecutor have sat down together and shared all the evidence, but the defense attorneys haven’t seen any of it?”
The deadline for discovery hasn’t arrived yet. Obviously, the defense has seen some of the evidence, since the defense attorney quotes a grand jury witness during this very story.
Now THAT'S rich. Nothing that the "Church" believes? Really? The Roman Catholic "Church" doesn't make the definitions -- GOD DOES. The standards are in His word....
The Roman Catholic "Church" teaches apostasy. According to God's definitions. That's the problem. When the Roman Catholic "Church" teaches heresy, it is by definition heretical.
"By definition...." Were it not so sad, it would be funny.
Hoss
“Now THAT’S rich.”
I don’t know if it’s rich, but it’s true.
“The Roman Catholic “Church” doesn’t make the definitions — GOD DOES.”
Through the Church.
“The Roman Catholic “Church” teaches apostasy. According to God’s definitions.”
No it doesn’t. Again, you curiously put the word “Church” in quotation marks.
“When the Roman Catholic “Church” teaches heresy, it is by definition heretical.”
It does not teach heresy. It cannot. Even if its teachings were false, they would not be heretical.
“Were it not so sad, it would be funny.”
It’s bad when the truth makes you react in that way.
Sources you requested:
1) The Synod of Melfi under Pope Urban II in 1089
“Wives and concubines were liable to be seized as slaves by the overlord, while the children were relegated to the category of servile rank, debarred from sacred orders, and declared incapable of exercising hereditary rights, because saepe solet similis filius esse patri.”
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran2.html
Very good, but you forgot to publish the whole canon.
CANON 21
Summary. Sons of priests must be debarred from the ministry of the altar.
Text. We decree that the sons of priests must be debarred from the ministry of the altar, unless they become monks or canons regular.
Comment. To put an end to clerical incontinence various kinds of disabilities were enacted and as far as possible enforced not only against the wives but also against the children of ecclesiastics. Wives and concubines were liable to be seized as slaves by the overlord, while the children were relegated to the category of servile rank, debarred from sacred orders, and declared incapable of exercising hereditary rights, because saepe solet similis filius esse patri. The Synod of Toledo (655) in canon 10 decreed that the sons of clerics in major orders are to be held forever as serfs of the church which their father served .[[30]] In 1031 the Synod of Bourges in canon 8 decreed that the sons of priests, deacons, and subdeacons, born after the reception of these orders, are excluded from the clerical state, because they and all others born of illegitimate unions are stigmatized by the Sacred Scriptures as semen maledictum. They are deprived of all hereditary rights in accordance with the civil law, and their testimony is not to be accepted. Those who already are clerics are to remain in whatever order they are, but are not to be promoted to higher orders. [[31]]. Urban (1088-99) forbade the ordination of the illegitimate sons of clerics, unless they became members of approved religious orders. [[32]]
The present council, following earlier decisions, permits promotion to the ministry of the altar in case such candidates should choose the religious life of approved orders. The irregularity incurred ex defectu natalium is obliterated by religious profession. Moreover, the solitude and enviroment of the religious life, as well as the protection it offers a sufficient guarantee that they will not follow in the sin-stained footsteps of the fathers. From ecclesiastical benefices and from all ecclesiastical dignities they are forever excluded. Religious profession opens the way to sacred orders, but it does not unseal the gateway to dignities or even to regular prelacies.
The purpose was not to have slaves; the purpose was to stop the pilferage of Church property under the pretext of inheritance.
There were a handful of instances of apparent Church sanctioned slavery, but generally relegated to Innocent VIII and Urban VII. You'll find that most popes spoke out against slavery. The Dominicans in the New World vehemently opposed the instances of slavery by the Spanish, earning for them the enmity of the Spanish kings, but leading to the early eradication of Spanish slavery, as opposed to American, English and Dutch slavery, which continued for centuries.
Did ya ever wonder how an ANGEL became a saint ? That is a designation of a human that was saved.
You really don’t seem to share all my concerns though...you have stated that you are comfortable with the RCC process of performing internal investigations before involving civil authorities. Based upon the results, that process is flawed. There have been many examples of church leaders (e.g. Law, and Lynn in this Philadelphia case) who didn’t seclude the accused priests and really didn’t conduct a thorough investigation.
I’m sure catholics, like everyone else, are horrified when stories like this come out. However, catholics are too entrenched in their defensive mode and can’t believe that their church culture really is to blame and still hasn’t done enough to make retribution for their mistakes or even more importantly prevent future abuses.
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.
Guilty of slaveholding, sure, the few that did. Generally speaking, slaveholding was not looked upon as a good by the Church, although there were enough Catholics who did.
Gregory XVI in 1839 issued a Papal Bull that prohibited Catholics from engaging in slavery, after realizing that individuals in the US were not restrained by less than that. That settled that matter then.
“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.
However, they did not have a majority of Catholics, nor were these states' laws written from Catholic ecclesial law.
The Society of Jesus in Maryland owned slaves who worked on the community’s farms. The Jesuits began selling off their slaves in 1837.
Two years before the Papal Bull, the Jesuits divested themselves (albeit some of the slaves were sold, I regret to report).
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.”
Yes. We have always had bishops that preached non Catholic beliefs, and engaged in non Catholic rhetoric and behaviour.
The floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops, so was the opinion of the Fathers. We have examples of them to this day. All we can do is fight their influence and rid Christianity of that influence and sometimes, them. Even Augustine himself had to be reclaimed. Some, like Origen never did come back...
Take a look at the water boarding they had to do to try to get her back to the catholic church
Thats what they would have to do to me
![[waterboarding+Spanish+Inquisition.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ADzQse4ayoM/SXD5KZPGkeI/AAAAAAAABD8/vdHDj_HMJ5E/s1600/waterboarding%2BSpanish%2BInquisition.jpg)
And with Gods grace I would still not renounce the gospel ..that is something Catholics can not understand and never could
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