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.
Not only does it appear you may not have read the article, but don't you think lumping the rape of children with "other kind of tutti-fruitti" is intentionally diminishing the corruption?
Words count. And those who choose words that dumb down the craven sins of pederast priests bear some responsibility in continuing the mayhem.
Truth isn’t funny to anyone.
Catholic church claims about itself are another matter entirely. First, they have to qualify as truth, and that doesn’t happen just because it was uttered by a Catholic.
Oh boo hoo!!! Instead of the race card they play the martyr card. And how many Catholics are still alive from the 1800's even early 1900's? And what, exactly, did the Republicans do to the poor babies?
Is there something about the forgiveness that Jesus taught about in His own words (that Catholic claim they hold in such high esteem) that they don't get?
They're still holding a grudge for over a hundred years and that's why they for pro-abortion?
Yeah.....right....
Study up on pope Gregory XVI and learn something.
Nice. A “roaming Roman” would be funnier though :)
“Truth isn’t funny to anyone.”
Then why was RnMomof7 laughing?
I have to admit, that's one sweeping generalization.
But not exclusively against the Catholic church and that doesn't mean that the person is by default a heretic against Christianity.
The Catholic church claims a lot of things that aren't true.
So, no, I didn't prove your point.
Still, none of what you said, whether it’s accurate or not, validates your assertion that James wrote it. That’s like saying Pope Damascus translated the Latin Vulgate when we all know it was Jerome.
LOLOL. These dumb excuses get more outlandish as time goes by.
The real reason in staring them in the face. The RCC is a top-down authoritarian hierarchy that tells its members what to do and not to think for themselves.
Exactly like Communism.
The real story is that truly conservative Roman Catholics are becoming Protestants. For every one Protestant in the U.S. who leaves his faith, four Roman Catholics leave theirs. And considering Protestants outnumber Roman Catholics by more than two to one, that is an astounding percentage of RCs leaving Rome for the truth of the Gospel.
I think post 666 may be of interests to you, Mark.
Not because of the number itself, but because we all know that Christianity lite likes to mock the Catholic Church’s stance against contraception.
And this is where it gets weird. er.
Called the sensus fidelium, the supernatural appreciation of the faith. Evidently, the faithful possess an instinctive sensitivity and discrimination in matters of faith. -Christopher O'Donnell, O.Carm., translator's note, Austin Flannery editor, Vatican Council II: The Concilar and Post Conciliar Documents, Study Edition (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Co., 2986), page 363.
What the faithful hold in common to be the true Catholic faith, they (the faithful) are infallible and cannot err in matters of belief. - Second Vatican Council, "Dogmatic Constitution on the Church," no. 12.
Are you really that clueless?
Here's a hint......
Because it wasn't truth.
They look to Mary for salvation. They pray to dead people. They follow men whom they believe to be "another Christ." They insist their own good words are required for justification since Christ's work on their behalf is not enough.
The RCC's heresies are exposed by reading the Bible. No wonder so few of them covet it.
What a red herring.
Are you taking that much of a beating on the thread that you need to switch gears so radically?
I agree they should have been removed from positions which allowed them contact with potential victims. That need not include incarceration.
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.
(and some remain in Congress...but that is another matter and not germane).
Sometimes life isn't fair.
True, that.
If his innocence is established, restore him to office.
There is the problem. In the current media circus, even the establishment of innocence is insufficient--merely the accusation is enough and no amount of exonneration, not even confessions of guilt by malicious and false accusers (page 32, under the fold, fine print) will remove the stigma. For a priest, it will follow him from parish to parish, even though he was cleared. As I stated, it is a career wrecker.
Imagine a day-care provider similarly accused. Would you leave your children with them after they had been cleared? Probably not.
Even the stigma of having been investigated would prevent you from placing your children in that day care, regardless of the outcome.
If not, throw his sorry butt in jail.
If proven guilty beyaond a reasonable doubt, the full force of the law should be brought to bear. I have never taken issue with that.
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.
If, indeed, they were permitted to be in positions where they could continue to perpetrate any crime they were accused of, yes, it is unconscionable. No argument there.
If the incidents were not investigated fully, that too, is a grevious breach of trust.
I am not in support of allowing any alleged wrongdoing to continue, or allow perpetrators to go unpunished if proven.
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.
Name another church which goes back a thousand years without its problems. Over a thousand years, especially considering that justice as we know it is only a couple hundred years old, a place gets a history.
Interesting in that over a thousand years of everything from preserving western civilization, art, history, etc., being a refuge for the persecuted, and countless good works, the only things the anti-Catholics can point out are these incidents.
Nobody will criticize them for acting appropriately when the situation comes up, as it is bound to now and then.
?
No, I didn't. Go back and read the posts. I said there were more Evangelical Protestants (26%) now than Roman Catholics (24%).
You lose. Again.
But what a great example of Roman Catholics not being able to say "hey, I made a mistake."
And when they disagree with each other, then what?
Two diametrically opposing truths that get labeled as a *mystery* to be taken on *faith* because there’s no way in heaven and on earth that and sane person with average reasoning skills can reconcile both to be true at the same time?
You did prove my point.
I said heresy is anything contrary to the Catholic Church.
The dictionary also gives a definition of heresy that backs up my claim:
her·e·sy
1 a : adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma
1 b : denial of a revealed truth by a baptized member of the Roman Catholic Church
1 c : an opinion or doctrine contrary to church dogma
Just because the word heresy can be used in another sense doesn’t mean my use of the word heresy was incorrect.
Here is an etymology that backs up my use of the word:
“an opinion of private men different from that of the catholick and orthodox church” [Johnson], early 13c., from O.Fr. heresie, from L. hæresis, “school of thought, philosophical sect,” used by Christian writers for “unorthodox sect or doctrine,” from Gk. hairesis “a taking or choosing,” from haireisthai “take, seize,” middle voice of hairein “to choose,” of unknown origin. The Greek word was used in N.T. in reference to the Sadducees, Pharisees, and even the Christians, as sects of Judaism, but in English bibles it usually is translated sect. Meaning “religious belief opposed to the orthodox doctrines of the Church” evolved in Late Latin in the Dark Ages.
http://etymonline.com/?term=heresy
By the way, I’ve been posting this week The Great Heresies by Hilaire Belloc. He was a pretty sharp man. You might learn something from him.
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