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Archdiocese Officials Continued to Assign Father Brennan to Posts Where He Would Have Regular Contact with Children. Philadelphia Grand Jury Presentment February 16, 2011 http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/PDFs/clergyAbuse2-finalPresentment.pdf [pdf] The Archdiocesan Review Board, a group of individuals chosen by the Cardinal to provide recommendations regarding the credibility of abuse allegations and the appropriate action to be taken, submitted a report to the Archdiocese on July 14, 2006. The report, signed by Cardinal Rigali on August 17, stated that "[A]dults in positions of management and leadership in Reverend Brennan's other assignments have consistently raised concerns concerning his behavior with youth." Archdiocese officials chose, however, not to act on those concerns. Before Father Brennan's leave of absence, having received reports of his inappropriate behavior around minors, they transferred the priest to a parish where he would be able to regularly interact with minors. Similarly, after Father Brennan returned from his leave of absence in July 1997, Msgr. Lynn recommended that he be appointed to St. Jerome Parish. While at St. Jerome, Father Brennan showed little interest in many of the core functions of a parish priest, according to a memo from Father Brennan's pastor to Msgr. Lynn. The priest missed communion calls, and openly admitted to his pastor that he did not like dealing with the elderly. However, he reportedly took a very active in erest and role in the Catholic Youth Organization at St. Jerome. In May 1998, Cardinal Bevilacqua reassigned Father Brennan again, this time to Assumption B.V.M. Parish in Feasterville, where, according to a clergy interview with Msgr. Lynn, he became "involved with altar servers" and taught at the elementary school. While at Assumption B.V.M., Father Brennan wrote to Msgr. Lynn, requesting permission to enter a monastery. In an effort to demonstrate why he believed he needed to leave parish life and isolate himself, Father Brennan attached to his letter a journal entry in which he had described a "primordial struggle being lived-out in a tormented state of unbridled passion." He wrote that he had sinned through "the superficial, habitual actions and attitudes of a body struggling to say afloat – of a mind writhing in pain, struggling to see the light of another day carrying with it the hope of some measure of success. And so I scrub my face and hands to present a clean man for the world to see; the filth and stench of my wanton failures of yesterday are washed away, as if I can, merely by willing it, put yesterday's failures behind me to begin brand new today." After receiving these materials, Msgr. Lynn and Cardinal Bevilacqua allowed the priest with a history of inappropriate relationships with minors to enter an abbey for seven months in 2000 and 2001. Then they welcomed him back to parish ministry, where he remained until Mark Bukowski came forward in 2006 to officially report that Father Brennan had raped him. |
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