Judge Gwendolyn N. Bright asked Father Andrew McCormick if he was making his decision not to testify in his own defense of his own free will.

"I am," the 59-year-old priest said.

It was the only time "Father Andy" has spoken in the courtroom since he pleaded not guilty to five sex abuse charges.

The jury did not hear Father Andy's brief answers; they were in the back room on a break. And when it comes time to decide the priest's fate tomorrow, the jury of 10 women and two men will have to try and reach a verdict without ever hearing a word from the defendant other than his repeated plea of "Not Guilty."

Defense lawyer Trevan Borum told the judge that the decision for the defendant to not take the witness stand was "based on the Commonwealth's evidence," or presumably lack thereof. There is no physical evidence in the case, only the words of the alleged victim about an incident that supposedly happened behind closed doors of a church rectory 18 years ago.

But another factor in Borum's decision had to be Father Andy's disastrous performance on the witness stand a year ago during his first trial. William J. Brennan, Father Andy's previous defense lawyer, conceded to that jury in his closing that Father Andy was "a bit of an awkward guy" who turned "beet red" on the witness stand and generally looked like "a deer in the headlights."

In Father Andy the sequel, the deer in the headlights has been written out of the script.

The rest of the defense's case, which began with the testimony of a former altar boy on Tuesday, was over in a few hours today.

The evidence presented today included three more former altar boys and a former female member of the Children of Mary who basically testified that Father Andy didn't molest me.

Also, a former church maintenance man told the jury that all the priests at St. John Cantius Church, including Father Andy, wore tighty-whities. And not the blue plaid boxer shorts that the alleged victim recalled seeing under Father Andy's black cassock.

The first defense witness of the day was Derrick Raguza, a 45-year-old fundraiser for a religious shrine who's a former altar boy at St. John's. Raguza testified that he went with Father Andy on a trip to Poland.

In Poland, Father Andy took the altar boy to see some churches and the former concentration camp at Auschwitz.

Raguza testified that in Poland he shared a room with Father Andy and the most disturbing thing that happened was, "Father snores."

When he became a high school student, Raguza testified, he came back to St. John's to ask Father Andy to help tutor him in Latin.

Robert Gumola was another 45-year-old altar boy who testified that Father Andy took him and five other altar boys on a ski trip to the Poconos.

Yes, the witness said, he'd been up to Father Andy's room in the rectory but it was only to "help him carry furniture."

Michalina Goral, 31, told the jury about the Children of Mary, the female counterpart to altar boys back in the 1990s at St. John Cantius, in the day sbefore girls were allowed to become altar servers.

Besides supervising the altar boys, Father Andy was in charge of the Children of Mary, Goral testified. She brought along a scrapbook of old photos that showed Father Andy with his arm around Goral's sister at her first Holy Communion. And Father Andy taking the altar boys and the Children of Mary girls on a trip to Great Adventure.

Goral told the jury she went along with Father Andy and the Children of Mary to visit elderly parishioners at nursing homes. The Children of Mary under Father Andy's direction also cleaned the church, had pizza parties, and marched in processionals.

The photos were from 1997, 1998 and 1999, around the time the alleged victim in the case was an altar boy at St. John Cantius. The alleged victim claims that one night after Mass on a Holy Day of Obligation in 1997 the priest lured the 10-year-old altar boy up to his room in the rectory and then attempted to stick his penis in the boy's mouth.

Coral worked as a volunteer at the rectory during the late 1990s. She testified that Father Andy was always receiving visitors there including parents and returning altar boys who were high school students.

"Father Andy was very social and very outgoing," Goral told the jury.

On cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Kristen Kemp pointed out that Father Andy looked about 30 pounds heavier in the pictures and that "a lot of that appears to be in his belly."

Goral agreed with the D.A.'s observations.

The next witness was Mark Pasternak, 56, a former longtime church maintenance worker at St. John Cantius.

Pasternak testified that while working at the church he noticed the lady who did the priest's laundry stacking clothes in piles on a table in the church basement.

"I saw piles of clothes with priests' names on it," Pasternak testified.

And all the priests' underwear was white, Borum asked.

Yes, Pasternak said.

See any blue plaid boxer shorts, Borum asked.

"That's not what I saw," Pasternak told the jury.

On cross-examination, Pasternak conceded that he was a close friend of Father Andy's.

Michael O'Brien, 38, an EMT in the Philadelphia Fire Department, told the jury that when he was an altar boy he wanted to be a bishop. Father Andy, O'Brien said, took a special interest in him. He also took two trips to Poland with Father Andy and saw the sights.

The trial is scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow with closing statements from the defense lawyer and the prosecutor. The judge will charge the jury, and after that, the case will be in the jury's hands.