PENNSYLVANIA
Mercury
Editorial
Two weeks shy of his 27th birthday, the tortured life of Sean Patrick McIlmail reportedly ended with an accidental drug overdose.
The Montgomery County resident died four days shy of facing in courtthe man allegedly responsible for his torment.
The preliminary hearing of the Rev. Robert L. Brennan was scheduled for Oct. 17 in Philadelphia on charges of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and aggravated indecent assault for allegedly abusing McIlmail between 1998 and 2001 when he was an altar boy at Resurrection of Our Lord parish in Northeast Philadelphia. He was 11 when Brennan allegedly began assaulting him.
According to one of two Philadelphia Grand Jury reports on clerical sexual abuse, officials in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia under Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua were notified that Brennan had sexually or inappropriately touched more than 20 boys. One of those officials was the Rev. Monsignor William Lynn who was secretary of clergy for most of Bevilacqua’s tenure from 1988 to 2003.
On June 22, 2012 a Philadelphia jury found Lynn guilty of one felony count of endangering the welfare of children. Lynn was sentenced to three to six years in prison.
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