"SECRET Archive Files" Sought in Clergy Abuse Case

By P.J. D'Annunzio
Legal Intelligencer
November 13, 2014

http://www.thelegalintelligencer.com/home/id=1202676335237/Secret-Archive-Files-Sought-in-Clergy-Abuse-Case?mcode=1202617075166&curindex=0&slreturn=20141013163540

The plaintiff in a priest sex-abuse case has asked the court to compel the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to reveal its “secret archive files” and personnel records on 17 priests.

In obtaining the information from the secret archives—which plaintiff Billy Doe claims to contain “unflattering” information on priests—Doe seeks to establish that Monsignor William Lynn repeatedly reassigned priests accused of sexual misconduct to different parishes, including defrocked priest Edward Avery, who in 1999 pleaded guilty to sexually abusing Doe, according to Doe’s motion to compel.

The motion was filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas by one of Doe’s attorneys, Paul Lauricella of McLaughlin & Lauricella. Lauricella did not return a call seeking comment.

Lynn was the first Catholic Church administrative official convicted of endangering the welfare of children abused by other priests, however, his conviction was overturned by the state Superior Court and he was released from prison Jan. 7. The state Supreme Court is set to hear argument in Lynn’s case Nov. 18.

“These files are likely to produce evidence of defendant Lynn’s bias and his interest in protecting the church, even at the expense of the well-being of the victims to whom he was supposedly offering pastoral care,” Doe’s court papers said.

Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney attorney Thomas A. Bergstrom, who represents Lynn, said he had not seen the motion, but asserted that Lynn brought the contents of the secret archive to the attention of Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, the leader of the archdiocese when Lynn was secretary of the clergy. Bevilacqua was archbishop of Philadelphia from 1988 to 2003, and died in 2012.