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	Law Meets Church in Philadelphia Pocono Record March 17, 2011 http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110317/NEWS04/103170301/-1/NEWSMAP Police have charged Monsignor William Lynn of Philadelphia with endangering children for allegedly transferring priest-predators to unsuspecting U.S. parishes. This unprecedented action by law enforcement authorities prompts the question: Why is it the first time? Priests and their supervisors have been accused for decades not only of sexual abuse of children but of covering it up, even perpetuating it by simply relocating wayward priests to new parishes where hapless parents didn't know the perp's history. Yet Lynn is the very first Roman Catholic authority to stand in court to answer charges of transferring known perpetrators. Lynn's four co-defendants are two priests, an ex-priest and a former Catholic school teacher, all four of whom are accused of raping the same boy during the 1990s. Lynn's defense is that he was never legally responsible for any individual child. Allegations of sexual abuse by priests began to emerge in the 1980s. By 2001 a number of major cases had come to light. The Catholic Church began admitting civil liability, paying millions of dollars in damages. In recent years allegations of coverups have included Catholic officials all the way to the Vatican. Sexual abuse of a minor is a crime, whether it's perpetrated by a priest or by a lay person. By the same token, having knowledge of such crimes, and doing nothing about them, is also a crime, regardless of whether that individual was a high church official or a lay person. Prosecutors contend that in Lynn's case a conspiracy of silence aimed to protect the church's reputation and to avoid scandal rather than protect the flock itself, including vulnerable children. Lynn's lawyers will claim his position didn't make him responsible for specific children. That's the issue. Can well-meaning individuals, be they bishops, or plant managers or school principals, defend themselves by saying they weren't responsible for individual transgressions? That look-the-other-way, I-didn't-see-it-myself attitude by diocesan or Vatican officials enabled predatory priests. Authorities in positions like Lynn's simply moved them out, sending them to unaccountable "treatment" centers or foisting them on another congregation, where they often abused again. Since church officials either could not or did not address those responsible for harming children, secular law should take a turn at doing just that.
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