September 22, 2005

BUT NO JUSTICE FOR VICTIMS AS GRAND JURY'S POWERLESS TO ACT

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

By WILLIAM BUNCH & DANA DiFILIPPO
bunchw@phillynews.com

The devil is in the details.

For example, there is the Philadelphia-area Roman Catholic priest who raped an 11-year-old girl, causing her to become pregnant, and then took her to have an abortion, and who also molested a 5th-grader inside the confessional booth.

There is also the case of the teenage girl who was immobilized in traction in a hospital bed and was molested by a priest.

And another priest is said to have been a sadomasochist who paid boys to place him in bondage - and then perform acts such as defecating so he could lick their excrement.

When the Roman Catholic clergy sex-abuse scandal exploded in 2002 in Boston, many wondered if Philadelphia - the 7th-largest archdiocese in the country with more than1.4 million parishioners - could have similar problems.

Posted by kshaw at September 22, 2005 12:07 PM