Judge Issues Opinion in Priest Sex-Abuse Appeal

By Amaris Elliott-Engel
The Legal Intelligencer
April 25, 2013

http://www.law.com/jsp/pa/PubArticlePA.jsp?hubtype=MAIN_PAGE&id=1202597370981&slreturn=20130324175937

The Philadelphia judge who presided over the first trial in the country of a Catholic Church official charged with endangering the welfare of children abused by other priests said there was evidence that his motive was to perpetuate a system of protecting abusive priests over their sexual-abuse victims.

Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina, writing in a 236-page opinion required under procedural rules in the appeal of Monsignor William J. Lynn, said that Lynn “followed in his predecessors’ footsteps, perpetuating the system that he inherited.”

Lynn was responsible for reviewing allegations of sexual abuse involving priests as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s secretary of clergy from 1992 until 2004.

For example, Sarmina cited the situation of Father Nicholas Cudemo, who Lynn knew had been accused of abusing at least nine different girls, and whom Lynn instructed to comply with restrictions on his ministry “'for the good of the church and the avoidance of scandal,”’ according to the opinion.