Eileen Difranco on Philadelphia Msgr. William Lynn: My Second Encounter with Bill Lynn

Voice from the Desert
May 24, 2012

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My Second Encounter with Bill Lynn

Ten years ago, I was a member of a support group for one of the survivors mentioned in the 2005 Grand jury report. Our group had invited Lynn to a meeting to explain to all of us how Nicholas Cudemo could remain a priest when the archdiocese knew he had sexually abused a long list of adolescent girls on a regular basis.

I decided that I would take a personal day today and see how Bill was making out now that lawyers rather than private citizens were asking him how men who committed horrific crimes against children could remain in ministry as priests in good standing under his watch.

I arrived early and just spent some time looking around the courtroom. . The lawyers were up front busily preparing for the day. A large group of mostly women came into court. I heard that they were Lynn’s family. There were perhaps 10 observers and many media people. For those of you in Philadelphia, I saw local reporters Vernon Odom, Pat Sirococi, and Terry Ruggles. I was told that there were people from the national news and I later saw one of the women on the CBS national news.

There was a large man sitting in front of me. When three priests walked in and sat in front of him, he patted one of them on the back. An elderly man asked if I were a sister. That was a first for me. I didn’t want to tell him what I really was and upset him. ( I’m a Roman Catholic Womanpriest.)

The trial began with a court attendant announcing, “Cease all conversation.” A young female defense lawyer interrogated Lynn’s secretary and tried to get the court to hear how “frustrated” Lynn was with this job of Secretary of the Clergy. That was stricken from the record. She labeled Lynn a “workaholic” who worked at the AD office all week and then said mass and heard confessions on the weekend. He took really good notes, she said.

When the defense called Lynn to come to the stand, people rather gasped. One of the reporters told me that I had picked the right day to attend. Lynn stated his credentials; ordained in 1976, assigned to only two parishes before he zipped right up the clerical ladder to become the Dean of Men Students at St. Charles Seminary, in 1984, a mere eight years after ordination, well before the age of forty. I had to chuckle about the men part. Were there any females at the seminary except for the cleaning staff and the librarian? As dean, he arranged activities and schedules. One must wonder if he knew anything about the seminary swimming pool, but I’ll get to that later. In 1991 he became the Vicar of Administration, reporting to Msgr. Molloy, now deceased, and Bishop Cullen. There he did quite a bit of paperwork, innocuous, he made it seem, as the paper made its way past his desk, to Molloy, then Cullen and Bevilaqua. I had this vision of never ending piles of paper making their way up and down the stairs and into secret archives and mysterious safes which held secrets that Lynn et al didn’t want to share.

Lynn said that the first time he was involved in an abuse case, he traveled with Molloy to Exton, a high end suburb located a substantial distance from the seminary. A boy made an allegation of inappropriate touch against a priest, whose name I didn’t catch. (Only the witness had a mic and the defense mumbled.) The priest made the boy undress before him. In one case, he took the boy to the pool at the seminary, had the kid take off his trunks and wrap a towel around himself. Then the priest pushed the kid into the pool while holding on to the towel while the kid fell naked into the pool.

Now, most of our suburbs in the Delaware Valley have numerous swim clubs and most parents in these same suburbs can afford to belong. So, one wonders why the priest took the kid all the way ( As I said, Exton is pretty far from the seminary) to the seminary to swim. One must wonder how many other boys were taken to swim at the seminary by priests and one wonders who was in charge of monitoring pool use.

The Lynn became Secretary of the Clergy after Bevilaqua changed the configuration of the office. His duties as secretary were impressive: he was a pastor to the priests, ( I thought the bishop did that.), he assessed priestly needs, settled living disputes, monitored admittance to the seminary, handled the retirement of priests, and handled sex abuse cases. Having even one of these jobs would be daunting, especially when he still exercised his ministry on the weekends. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy and sounded like Superman.

After lunch, I headed back to hear Bill Lynn raked over the coals by the DA. “Did you,” the DA asked, “Ever hear the scripture verse about hanging a millstone around the neck of one who harms children?” Lynn said he did. “Did you put the needs of priests above the needs of children?” (Get ready to run for the hills, kids) Lynn said no. “Did you ever lie to people?” “No,” Lynn said, who hesitated and then added, maybe once to Mark Berkowitz.

Well, Lynn told a big fat lie earlier in the day when he testified that a pastor named Joseph Graham was part of an aftercare treatment plan for a Father Avery, who was coming out of a nine month hospital stay. Avery was also on trial until he pled guilty to sexual abuse right before the trial began. According to the 2011 Grand Jury report, the pastor denied even knowing he was on the team. Eventually, the team did meet, a year after Avery arrived at the parish. Today, Lynn repeatedly stated that the pastor was part of the aftercare team and was aware of everything that was going on. Someone lied either today or last year. Isn’t it a crime to lie under oath?

We also heard today in court that Avery was doing a good job being a hospital chaplain via letters written by his therapist to Lynn, which made it seem as if Lynn was right on top of things. We were also led us to believe that a Father Kerper, an outsider from either Boston or New Hampshire, was harassing Father Avery who was just trying to be a good priest. While we listened to glowing reports of Avery’s progress in chaplaincy and Father’s Kerper’s taking all the mass spots at St. Jerome Parish, the 2011 Grand Jury report stated that Kerper complained to Lynn that Avery was ignoring parish work and making arrangements to DJ 25 out of 31 Saturdays. So much for Lynn’s glowing reports of the after care team.

As the DA pounded Lynn with accusations that he did not protect children from abuse, Lynn insisted that he had little to no power to do anything beyond removing a priest who admitted to molesting children. All power was vested in the cardinal. Lynn, a grown man of 61 said, “The will of God works through the bishop.” (Bevilaqua) Lynn, therefore, could only do what the bishop wanted, told, and allowed him to do. In other words, Lynn was only following orders. He could not and would not to do otherwise, even when innocent children were being raped and sodomized.

Lynn, his voice shaking a bit, said that he really truly believed that he was doing his best – given the parameters of his job and his obedience to the cardinal- to help children.

I thought about Lynn and his power and his one admitted lie. Ten years ago, I had personally reported to Lynn that Cudemo still presided at mass at his victim’s geographic parish in spite of Lynn’s promise to our group that this practice would cease. Lynn’s exact words to me? “I told that pastor that I would take away his parish if it (Cudemo’s presiding at mass) happened again.”

Lynn let us in the support group believe that he had the power to remove men from ministry. Was he lying to us? That would be his second lie. Was he lying at the trial today when he said he had no power to remove men from ministry unless they confessed when he led us believe that he could? That could be lie #3. The 2005 Grand jury reported that the pastor Lynn allegedly threatened with removal was never told anything about Cudemo’s problems. Was that lie #4? Shall we go on?

How many other lies and liars and secret files are stashed away in the archdiocesan office that thinks it does the will of God when it knowingly places innocent children in harm’s way?