Lynn Sentencing Today in Priest Sex Abuse Case

By John P. Martin
Philadelphia Inquirer
July 24, 2012

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/163518146.html

The sentencing today of Msgr. William J. Lynn will mark the first for a Catholic church official convicted of enabling clergy-sex abuse.

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina is scheduled to sentence Lynn later this morning for failing to take steps that might have prevented a priest from sexually assaulting a 10-year-old altar boy.

Lynn, 61, faces up to seven years in state prison. He has been jailed since his June 22 conviction.

His sentencing will follow an unprecedented three-month trial that exposed decades of child-sex abuse by Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests, and showed how church leaders sometimes shuffled accused clerics to hide the misconduct from the public.

As the secretary for clergy to Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, Lynn spent a dozen years managing area priests' assignments and investigating claims of misconduct, including allegations of child-sex abuse.

A jury convicted him of child endangerment for allowing Edward Avery, a former parish priest, to remain in active ministry in the mid-1990s after learning that Avery had once molested a minor.

Avery, defrocked six years ago, pleaded guilty in March to charges that he sexually assaulted an altar boy at St. Jerome Church in Northeast Philadelphia in 1999.

In testimony at his own trial, Lynn maintained that he did his best - and much did more than his predecessors - to isolate suspect priests. But he said he was hampered by church policies and a lack of authority.

He had arranged for Avery to be removed as pastor of a Mount Airy parish in 1992 and hospitalized for evaluation after a medical student came forward to say the priest molested him in the late 1970s. Avery denied the allegation, but Lynn still labeled him as "guilty of sexual misconduct with a minor" on a confidential list of suspected and confirmed pedophile priests he compiled for Bevilacqua in 1994.

Avery was later returned to ministry and limited to work as a chaplain at Nazareth Hospital and expected to be monitored by an "aftercare" team. But he was allowed to live in the rectory and celebrate Mass at the Northeast Philadelphia parish where he later molested the boy.

Lynn's lawyers argued that only the cardinal had the authority to move or remove priests.

In a motion to the judge last week, they urged her to consider a sentence of probation or less than a year in county jail, contending that Lynn had already endured an unprecedented amount of shame and vilification.

"The last ten years of his life were a time of reflection, penance and rehabilitation," lawyers Thomas Bergstrom and Jeffrey Lindy wrote.

They also asked that he be released on bail while they appeal the verdict.

Lynn left the clergy office in 2004 to become pastor of St. Joseph Church in Downingtown. He was suspended from that post after his arrest last year. More than 300 of his supporters submitted letters to the judge in advance of the sentencing.

Prosecutors from the office of District Attorney Seth Williams asked Sarmina to impose the maximum term, arguing that Lynn's crimes were more severe than the typical child endangerment felony. They said his actions - and inaction - as clergy secretary ultimately impacted thousands of Catholics across the region.

Contact: jmartin@phillynews.com