Main | Monday, March 26, 2012

Pedophile Catholic Priest Pleads Guilty: Diocese Knew About Me And Did Nothing

A defrocked Catholic priest about to begin trial on molestation charges in Philadelphia abruptly changed his plea to "guilty" on Friday. As part of his confession, Father Edward Avery declared that his diocese had been aware of his crimes, but had allowed him to keep his job.
In a statement of facts read as part of the guilty plea, Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington said, “Avery was aided in his efforts to remain in ministry with unsupervised access to parish children and altar servers and others in the Archdiocese. “Defendant Lynn and other Archdiocese officials acted in concert with Avery with a common purpose to conceal Avery’s known acts of sexual abuse of a minor, so that Avery could remain in ministry without the knowledge of parishioners whose children would be exposed to a man that defendant Lynn and others in the Archdiocese knew presented a danger to children.”
The trial of Monsignor William Lynn, who allegedly hid Avery's crimes, began today.
It was his job to investigate allegations of sexual abuse, but Coelho says Lynn paid lip service to the protection of children while protecting the priests now charged with (and in at least one case admitting to) abusing children. Coelho told jurors that Lynn, with a secret file of the complaints, was the keeper of the secrets. And he kept parishoners in the dark, she said, because there was a concerted effort to protect the church from scandal even if it endangered additional children.

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