Chaput Expected to Deal with Accused Priests

WPVI
May 2, 2012

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8645646

[with video]

Philadelphia archbishop Charles Chaput will hold a news conference on Friday, presumably to announce the fate of nearly 2 dozen priests suspended in the wake of the child sex abuse scandal.

Chaput just wrapped up an emergency meeting with hundreds of priests at Cardinal O'Hara High School in Springfield, Delaware County.

The Philadelphia Archdiocese would not make an official comment about what was being discussed at the meeting.

The accused priests were put on administrative leave in February following a grand jury report claiming the archdiocese allowed priests accused of misconduct to remain at their posts.

Action News spoke by phone with two of the suspended priests, and they said they had not yet been told about the plans for their futures, if any, with the church.

There was damning testimony late Monday against Msgr. William Lynn, the first church official criminally charged with enabling sexually abusive priests and covering up child abuse.

The focus Monday was on Father David Sicoli. In graphic terms, two Levittown, Pa. men now in their forties described ongoing sexual abuse at the hands of Sicoli when they were 14 years old, much of the time at his Sea Isle City home at the Jersey shore.