BishopAccountability.org
	The Cover-Up Can Be As Bad As the Crime The Phillyburbs December 3, 2011 http://www.phillyburbs.com/the-cover-up-can-be-as-bad-as-the-crime/article_32438022-230d-5e46-a38e-390227ca1bcb.html For the past several weeks, anyone who's tuned into a TV or radio news broadcast or picked up a newspaper or news magazine has almost certainly encountered lurid stories alleging longtime sexual abuse of minors by Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant football coach at Penn State University. Adding to the revulsion were the tales of a huge cover-up of that abuse by school officials. Those accusations resulted in the firing of longtime head football coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier, as well as the resignation of university vice president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley requesting and being granted administrative leave to fight the charges — lying to the grand jury — against them. During the past few days, two more stories dealing with child sexual abuse cases and subsequent cover-ups also have made headlines. At Syracuse University in New York, Bernie Fine, the longtime assistant basketball coach, was fired after being accused of sexually molesting minors, and in an even more unbelievable revelation, the coach's wife (in a taped conversation) purportedly admitted initiating her own sexual relationship with a young man that she had observed being sexually abused by her husband. At roughly the same time, word quickly spread that Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, the former head of the Philadelphia Roman Catholic Archdiocese for 15 years, was again being questioned by prosecutors and asked to explain how much he knew about alleged clergy sexual abuse in the Philadelphia area and how he and his subordinates had responded to those allegations. This, despite the pleadings of diocesan officials that the 88-year-old Bevilacqua was too sick (suffering from cancer and dementia) to be able to testify. When Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina insisted she found Bevilacqua fit enough to answer questions, a compromise was reached. The cardinal would not have to come to court. He would be cross-examined by the judge and several lawyers on video in a conference room at St. Charles Seminary, where he resides. This was not the first time Bevilacqua had been questioned in this matter. Between 2003 and 2005, he would testify on 10 different occasions before a grand jury impaneled to investigate the sexual abuse of minors. In a blistering report, that grand jury would conclude he and his predecessor, the late Cardinal John J. Krol, along with their top assistants, had engaged in a continuous and concerted campaign of cover-up of priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia accused of sexual offenses against minors. While the results of the latest interrogations (that went on for two days) were sealed and unavailable to the public, at least one anonymous source quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer claimed Bevilacqua repeatedly insisted he "didn't recall" or "didn't remember" any of the details of the sexual abuse cases and that "investigating the abuse claims was the responsibility of the Secretary of the Clergy" — at that time, Monsignor William Lynn. Lynn, accused of enabling sexually abusive priests, is scheduled to stand trial in March. According to Gerald Corrento, a member of the 2003-2005 grand jury, the cardinal's testimony back then was memorable: "We were desperately seeking the truth, and because the Cardinal was always very evasive in his answers, and rarely answered a question directly, we were convinced he was not telling the truth," Corrento remembered. "The most consistent response we got from him, and other high ranking members of the clergy, was 'I don't recall.' "Yet, the Cardinal's own documents — many of them from his 'secret file,' which we subpoenaed and had in our possession — proved that he knew what these accused priests were up to. We found his signature on a lot of these documents. "I heard that expression, 'I don't recall,' so often, that I hope I never hear it again. "We were simply trying to get the truth from a man who was not talking. Even worse, from our standpoint, Cardinal Bevilacqua is not only a Canon (church) lawyer, but he's also a civil lawyer. As a lawyer, he certainly should have known that many of these allegations were of criminal activities and what his responsibilities were in reporting the individual abuses to the proper authorities. Instead, he allowed them to go on, and put the offenders into parishes where they would encounter more children." There are many, including members of the clergy, who believe Lynn, having been arrested and about to stand trial, is paying the price for the failings of both Cardinal Bevilacqua and Cardinal Krol. One local priest in expressing his dismay to me over the situation said simply: "Monsignor Lynn is Cardinal Bevilacqua's 'fall guy.' He couldn't have moved those accused priests without the cardinal's OK." Corrento, a lifelong-practicing Catholic, was even more definitive. "Let there be no doubt about this," he said. "If there had been no statute of limitations, every single member of the grand jury agreed that we would have indicted Cardinal Bevilacqua, many of his key administrators and every one of the accused priests. We would have done everything possible to make these people pay for what they did." Since covering up for known sexual abusers can offer them opportunities to perpetrate atrocities on additional victims, this type of crime is nearly as horrific as the commission of the crime itself. Jerry Jonas' column appears in the Life section every Sunday.
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