UNITED STATES
Notre Dame Magazine
Published: Summer 2013
Author: John Salveson, ’77, ’78M.A.
Sitting in Courtroom 304 of the Philadelphia Criminal Justice Center last summer, I couldn’t take my eyes off of the defendant, Monsignor William Lynn. Lynn was secretary of clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 until 2004 and was on trial for two counts of child endangerment and one count of conspiracy.
The witness on the stand was Detective Joseph Walsh, a 35-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department who had spent the last decade of his career investigating one of the largest child sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church. He held a pile of confidential church records. Many, written in the monsignor’s own hand, revealed that Lynn had lied or misled others about the misconduct of a sexually abusive priest in his archdiocese — and ultimately had failed to protect children. As the detective read, the monsignor, red-faced, dropped his head and slowly shook it back and forth.
A few weeks later, on a sweltering summer day, I heard the news that Monsignor Lynn had been convicted of one count of child endangerment. It was the first time an American priest of the Roman Catholic Church had been convicted of a crime for covering up the sexual abuse perpetuated by a fellow priest. It was truly historic.
As I drove into Philadelphia to attend the district attorney’s press conference and give media interviews, I reflected on the enormity of the conviction — one that I had been fighting for these past 30 years.
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