PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia allowed a priest to remain in parish ministry in 1989 after psychiatrists diagnosed him as a pedophile, described him as “a very sick man” and strongly recommended that he never be allowed to work around young people, according to internal church records.
One of the doctors who evaluated the priest, the Rev. Peter J. Dunne, “stated quite bluntly that we are sitting on a powder keg,” a church official later noted in a memo.
Dunne’s records emerged Tuesday in the trial of Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former secretary of clergy accused of enabling child-sex abuse by failing to remove priests suspected of sexual misconduct. Prosecutors are introducing evidence about decades-old allegations against Dunne and other priests to suggests church officials for years understood the signs and depth of clergy sex abuse, but chose instead to hide the problem from parishioners, endangering children.
Dunne had been long active in scouting and archdiocesan schools when a California man reported in 1986 that the priest had pressed him into a sexual relationship when he was 13. Dunne privately arranged a settlement with his accuser. Dunne also resisted or ignored archdiocesan officials repeated attempts for treatment, despite telling one therapist that he may have had “six or seven” incidents of sexual misconduct, the records show.
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