The trial began with a court attendant announcing, “Cease all
conversation.” A young female defense lawyer interrogated Lynn's
secretary and tried to get the court to hear how "frustrated" Lynn was with this
job of Secretary of the Clergy. That was stricken from the record. She labeled
Lynn a "workaholic" who worked at the AD office all week and then said mass and
heard confessions on the weekend. He took really good notes, she
said.
When the defense called Lynn to come to the stand, people rather gasped.
One of the reporters told me that I had picked the right day to attend. Lynn
stated his credentials; ordained in 1976, assigned to only two parishes before
he zipped right up the clerical ladder to become the Dean of Men Students at St.
Charles Seminary. in 1984, a mere eight years after ordination, well before the
age of forty. I had to chuckle about the men part. Were there any females at the
seminary except for the cleaning staff and the librarian? As dean, he arranged
activities and schedules. One must wonder if he knew anything about the seminary
swimming pool, but I'll get to that later. In 1991 he became the Vicar of
Administration, reporting to Msgr. Molloy, now deceased, and Bishop Cullen.
There he did quite a bit of paperwork, innocuous, he made it seem, as the paper
made its way past his desk, to Molloy, then Cullen and Bevilaqua. I had this
vision of never ending piles of paper making their way up and down
the stairs and into secret archives and mysterious safes which
held secrets that Lynn et al didn’t want to share.
Lynn said that the first time he was involved in an abuse case, he
traveled with Molloy to Exton, a high end suburb located a substantial distance
from the seminary. A boy made an allegation of inappropriate touch against a
priest, whose name I didn't catch. The priest made the boy undress before him.
In one case, he took the boy to the pool at the seminary, had the kid take off
his trunks and wrap a towel around himself. Then the priest pushed the kid into
the pool while holding on to the towel while the kid fell naked into the
pool.
Now, most of our suburbs in the Delaware Valley have numerous swim clubs
and most parents in these same suburbs can afford to belong. So, one wonders why
the priest took the kid all the way ( As I said, Exton is pretty far from the
seminary) to the seminary to swim. One must wonder how many other boys were
taken to swim at the seminary by priests and one wonders who was in charge of
monitoring pool use.
The Lynn became Secretary of the Clergy after Bevilaqua changed the
configuration of the office. His duties as secretary were impressive: he was a
pastor to the priests, ( I thought the bishop did that.), he assessed priestly
needs, settled living disputes, monitored admittance to the seminary, handled
the retirement of priests, and handled sex abuse cases. Having
even one of these jobs would be daunting, especially when he still exercised his
ministry on the weekends. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy
and sounded like Superman.
After lunch, I headed back to hear Bill Lynn raked over the
coals by the DA. “Did you,” the DA asked, “Ever hear the scripture verse about
hanging a millstone around the neck of one who harms children?” Lynn said he
did. “Did you put the needs of priests above the needs of
children?” (Get ready to run for the hills, kids) Lynn said no. “Did you ever
lie to people?” “No,” Lynn said, who hesitated and then added, maybe once to
Mark Berkowitz.
Well, Lynn told a big fat lie earlier in the day when he testified that a
pastor named Joseph Graham was part of an aftercare treatment plan for a Father
Avery, who was coming out of a nine month hospital stay. Avery was also on trial
until he pled guilty to sexual abuse right before the trial began.
According to the 2011 Grand Jury report, the pastor denied even
knowing he was on the team. Eventually, the team did meet, a year after Avery
arrived at the parish. Today, Lynn repeatedly stated that the pastor was part of
the aftercare team and was aware of everything that was going on. Someone lied
either today or last year. Isn’t it a crime to lie under
oath?
We also heard today in court that Avery was doing a good job being a
hospital chaplain via letters written by his therapist to Lynn, which made it
seem as if Lynn was right on top of things. We were also led us to believe that
a Father Kerper, an outsider from either Boston or New Hampshire, was harassing
Father Avery who was just trying to be a good priest. While we listened to
glowing reports of Avery’s progress in chaplaincy and Father’s Kerper’s taking
all the mass spots at St. Jerome Parish, the 2011 Grand Jury report stated that
Kerper complained to Lynn that Avery was ignoring parish work and making
arrangements to DJ 25 out of 31 Saturdays. Lynn knew those glowing reports the
jury heard about were untrue.
As the DA pounded Lynn with accusations that he did not protect children
from abuse, Lynn insisted that he had little to no power to do anything beyond
removing a priest who admitted to molesting children. All power
was vested in the cardinal. Lynn, a grown man of 61 said, “The
will of God works through the bishop.” (Bevilaqua) Lynn, therefore, could only
do what the bishop wanted, told, and allowed him to do. In other words, Lynn was
only following orders. He could not and would not to do otherwise, even when
innocent children were being raped and sodomized.
Lynn, his voice shaking a bit, said that he really truly believed that he
was doing his best – given the parameters of his job and his obedience to the
cardinal- to help children.
I thought about Lynn and his power and his one admitted lie. Ten years
ago, I had personally reported to Lynn that Cudemo still presided at mass at his
victim’s geographic parish in spite of Lynn’s promise to our group that this
practice would cease. Lynn’s exact words to me? “I told that pastor that I would
take away his parish if it (Cudemo’s presiding at mass) happened
again.”
Lynn let us in the support group believe that he had the power to remove
men from ministry. Was he lying to us? That would be his second lie. Was he
lying at the trial today when he said he had no power to remove men from
ministry unless they confessed when he led us believe that he could? That could
be lie #3. The 2005 Grand jury reported that the pastor Lynn allegedly
threatened with removal was never told anything about Cudemo’s problems. Was
that lie #4? Shall we go on?
How many other lies and liars and secret files are stashed away in the
archdiocesan office that thinks it does the will of God when it knowingly places
innocent children in harm’s way?
Eileen McCafferty DiFranco
May 23, 2012
