PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
Monica Yant Kinney, Inquirer Columnist
It was one of the most graphic details in a grand jury report filled with uncomfortable passages: A sentence on Page 37 stating that after the Rev. James J. Brennan anally raped a 14-year-old, the priest remained inside his body as the boy cried himself to sleep.
Yet in Monday’s opening statements at the long-awaited clergy sex-abuse trial in Common Pleas Court, both the prosecution and a defense attorney offered a sharply sanitized version of that night, which casts doubt on the case against Brennan and could weaken the conspiracy charge against Msgr. William J. Lynn, charged with protecting abusive priests and placing children in harm’s way.
Assistant District Attorney Jacqueline Coelho said the accuser had his underwear on when he was “almost raped” by Brennan.
Defense attorney William Brennan, no relation to his client, dismissed what transpired between the priest and the boy as a “pelvic bump between clothing.”
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