Appeal tomorrow

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Father Raymond Marie Laovie‘s appeal of his three year sentence for the sex abuse of 11 boys will be heard tomorrow (02 May 2012) at the Édifice Ernest-Cormier, the Quebec Court of appeal in Quebec City, Quebec.  I am sure there will be no decision rendered, but am interested in the arguments.  If anyone hears or sees anything would you please pass it along?

Please keep these victims in your prayers.

Enough for now,

Sylvia

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Details of abuse given to inquiry, says victim

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The Irish Times

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor

A VICTIM of late paedophile priest Brendan Smyth has stated he gave information to a Catholic Church inquiry team that included Fr Seán Brady – now Cardinal Brady – about how Smyth had abused other children.

Brendan Boland (51), from Co Louth, said this information was not passed on to the parents of these children, two of whom continued to be abused by the serial child sex abuser.

Smyth continued to abuse one particular Belfast boy a year after Mr Boland had given information about this abuse to a church inquiry, it was claimed last night. Three priests, including canonical lawyer Fr Brady – now the Catholic primate, Cardinal Brady – conducted that 1975 inquiry.

Details of this abuse and how such details were not passed on to the children’s parents or to gardaí are contained in a BBC’s This World documentary, The Shame of the Catholic Church, broadcast last night on BBC Northern Ireland. It is to be rebroadcast tonight on BBC 2.

Mr Boland recounted to programme reporter Darragh McIntyre how, as a 12-year-old, he was sexually abused by Smyth. He had reported this to a local priest, who informed the church authorities and Mr Boland’s parents.

This in turn led to the 1975 canonical inquiry, in which Mr Boland was questioned alone by the three priests while his father remained outside the interview room. After making his allegations, Mr Boland said he was asked to swear on a Bible that what he said was true and that he would “speak to no one about this meeting, only to authorised priests”. He agreed to this.

The abuse Smyth perpetrated took place during car trips the priest brought the young Mr Boland and other children on. Mr Boland said he had told the priests about the abuse and about five other children Smyth had taken with him on these car trips.

He said: “I’d given them the names of the other children that were with me on the trips. There was a boy from Belfast – I gave them his name and address. There was a girl from Belfast – I gave them her name and address. There was a girl from Cavan – I gave them her name and address. And there was another boy from Cavan – I gave them his name and address. And there was another boy that was his friend.”

Mr Boland told the inquiry he knew at least two of the boys were being abused by Smyth – the Belfast boy and a boy from Cavan.

McIntyre said he had spoken to all the children identified by Mr Boland to the inquiry. He discovered four of them had been abused by Smyth and two continued to be abused after the inquiry. “They all say that, to the best of their knowledge, their families were not warned in any way about Smyth,” said McIntyre.

Furthermore, according to the programme, Smyth later abused the sister of the Belfast boy for seven years, and abused four of his first cousins for a period up to 1988.

The Belfast victim, now middle-aged, spoke to the programme. His name was not disclosed and his face was shielded. “Nobody came to our house,” he said. “They should have came to our house and warned our family, or my parents, and said, ‘Look, this is what’s happening, this man is involved in this. We would strictly advise you to keep him away from the house,’” he added.

After the 1975 inquiry, a report was presented to the late bishop of Kilmore, Francis Mac Kiernan. Smyth, a member of the Norbertine Order in Cavan, was later forbidden to hear confession and barred from certain duties. Police were told nothing and Smyth continued to abuse.

Smyth was jailed, first in 1994 in Northern Ireland, and later in the Republic, for his crimes of sex abuse of children over 40 years. He died in prison in 1997.

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Story of ‘ladies man’ priest turned molester unfolds in court

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philly.com

Posted: Tue, May. 1, 2012, 12:07 PM

By Joseph A. Slobodzian

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Young and darkly handsome, Sylvester Wiejata had an eye for the ladies, especially married ones.

Problem was, Wiejata was a priest.

This morning a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury listened to the grand jury testimony of Msgr. William J. Lynn as he tried to explain his alleged failure to act as Wiejata’s sexual overtures went from married women to single women in their 20s and, ultimately in August 2000, allegations that he had fondled the 13-year-old daughter of a woman with whom he had an affair.

As secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, Lynn, 61, was the Archdiocesan official responsible for investigating allegations of sexual abuse by priests. Charged with endangering the welfare of children. He is the first Catholic church official to be criminally prosecuted in a landmark trial focusing on the sexual abuse of children by some priests in the Philadelphia archdiocese.

Lynn had denied the charge that his alleged inaction enabled deviate priests to continue preying on children and his lawyers have argued that he was the first church official here to move against priests against whom there were years of record allegations of sexual misconduct.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington today read to the jury Lynn’s testimony before the county investigating grand jury about the Wiejata case in an apparent effort to show that Lynn, like his predecessors, was more interested in protecting the church’s reputation than the welfare of Wiejata’s alleged victims.

Wiejata, now 42, was defrocked by the church in March 2002, just six years after his ordination. According to trial testimony, Wiejata began an affair with a married woman at his first parish assignment, Our Lady of Calvary in Philadelphia. Moved to the Assumption B.V.M. parish in West Grove in Chester County, the young priest promptly began a new affair with another married parishioner.

Lynn, in his testimony before the grand jury, described how Wiejata was removed from the Assumption church in 1999 and became a patient at St. John Vianney Hospital in Downingtown, the church-run facility for priests with sexual or substance-abuse problems.

But after eight months of treatment, Lynn’s testimony revealed, the church official was getting new complaints that Wiejata’s “sexual acting-out” had taken a disturbing new turn.

In May 2000, Lynn told the grand jury that he got a phone call from a theological professor who accused Wiejata of acting inappropriately with the professor’s 20- and 21-year-old daughters during a dinner at his house. The professor said that Wiejata asked the young women to sit in his lap and then told one that he dreamed of her and kissing her.

In August 2000, Lynn told the grand jury, he received an anonymous call from a woman, who said she knew of Wiejata history because she had an affair with him. She said that she came home and discovered Wiejata there fondling and kissing her 13-year-old daughter.

In his testimony before the grand jury, Lynn struggled to explain to the prosecutor why he did not try to discover the child’s identity and why he did not consider calling the police. Although his phone memo notes had the name of a person named “Pat” on the pad, Lynn insisted that he did not know if this was the name of the anonymous caller.

Lynn said he did not contact the West Grove parish to see if the name matched with anyone who attended the Assumption church. Nor did he call police, telling the grand jury prosecutor that “I wasn’t thinking in terms of a crime.” Lynn also told the grand jury that he had doubts about the caller’s credibility because she admitted to an affair with Wiejata. “I thought she might be vindictive,” he said.

Still, Lynn ordered Wiejata — then still on administrative leave from the ministry — to come to his offices on Aug. 4, 2000 and, with an aide taking notes, confronted Wiejata who ultimately admitted to fondling the 13-year-old girl.

Contact Joseph A. Slobodzian at 215-854-2985, jslobodzian@phillynews.com, or follow him on Twitter @JoeSlobo

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A very young Father Robert Whyte csb serves as page to Cardinal Villeneuve in 1934 (pictures)

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The following pictures were taken during Cardinal Villeneuve’s 05-09 June 1934 to Toronto, Ontario during which time he was conferred the Degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of Toronto.   A very young Robert Whyte was one of eight St. Michael’s College School  “Junior Students” chosen to serve as a page to the Cardinal during the three-day Toronto visit.  All eight boys accompanied the cardinal on his visit to the Diocese of London, Ontario (scroll down).  Pictures and text “Au Revoir” are from the Souvenir Booklet of the Visit to Toronto of His Eminence Cardianl Villeneuve omi, Archbishop of Quebec, June 5 – 9, 1934

Click on the pictures to enlarge.

AU REVOIR

At a quarter to nine Cardinal Villeneuve left Toronto to visit Western Ontario. He motored to Hamilton where he visited His Excellency Bishop McNally who had been taken ill ten days previously and then went on to Galt where he boarded the train which was taking his suite to London. On his visit to the Diocese of London he was accompanied by the eight pages, chosen from among the Junior Students of St. Michael’s College School and attired in specially designed uniforms of red, purple and gold, who had been in constant attendance on him during his stay in Toronto. The way in which he made his young attendants feel at ease in his presence is the best illustration of that kindness and sympathy which won the hearts of all who met him. It is the sincere wish of the Superior, Trustees, Staff and Students of St. Michael’s College that His Emi­nence will in the near future be once more their guest.

(Pictures and text from Souvenir Booklet of the Visit to Toronto of His Eminence Cardinal Villeneuve omi, Archbishop of Quebec, June 5 – 9, 1934)

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Fugitive ex-priest in child sex case to remain free

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The Orlando Sentinel

8:26 a.m. EST, May 1, 2012

By Gary Marx and David Jackson, Chicago Tribune reporters

Cook County prosecutors say they are ending their decade-long effort to extradite a Roman Catholic priest who fled to India shortly before he was charged with 20 counts of criminal sexual assault and abuse of a 16-year-old Chicago girl.

The Rev. Sleeva Raju Policetti has maintained his innocence since abruptly leaving Chicago in 2002, and in India he has waged a protracted court battle against efforts to extradite him to Chicago to face trial.Policetti’s alleged victim initially worked with authorities, setting in motion an international extradition that required the approval of top officials from the U.S. State and Justice departments and India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

But in recent days she told First Assistant State’s Attorney Shauna Boliker that she no longer wished to pursue the case, effectively forcing prosecutors to drop it.

“With any case, our victims’ wishes, No. 1, are foremost in our minds,” Boliker said Monday. “We need her cooperation and participation. … This is a decade later and a different time of her life.”

In coming days the state’s attorney’s office will notify the Justice Department that it is withdrawing arrest warrants for Policetti in Chicago and India, Boliker said.

The collapse of the case offers an example of how an opaque and slow-moving international extradition system can derail justice, leaving suspects accused of serious crimes free when they find haven in foreign lands.

Similar years-long delays have undermined other international fugitive manhunts, the Tribune found in an examination of more than 100 cases from the Chicago area and thousands of others nationwide. In some instances, witnesses died or disappeared, making the cases impossible to prosecute.

Policetti, now 53, could not immediately be reached for comment Monday. The assaults allegedly took place over a year in the rectory of St. Tarcissus’ Parish on Chicago’s Northwest Side, where Policetti was assigned as an extern priest.

He is one of at least 32 Roman Catholic priests nationwide since 1985 who have absconded to foreign countries while facing criminal charges or investigations related to allegations that they sexually assaulted or abused youths in the U.S., the Tribune investigation found. Only five have been returned to face trial.

More than two dozen other Catholic clergy members went abroad or were transferred to foreign countries by church authorities while facing internal church inquiries or civil allegations of child sex misconduct, the Tribune found.

In March, fugitive priest Joseph Jeyapaul was arrested in India after seven years on the run from charges that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old Minnesota girl. That arrest came roughly a week after Jeyapaul’s case was highlighted by the Tribune. Jeyapaul is still in India and resisting extradition in court, according to attorneys involved in the case.

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Archdiocese clears priest of abuse charge

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The Boston Globe

May 01, 2012

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston said it has determined that a child sexual abuse allegation against a Roslindale priest was unsubstantiated. The archdiocese said Monday that the allegation, dating to the 1980s, was made against the Rev. John M. Mendicoa of Sacred Heart Parish in August. Mendicoa has now been taken off administrative leave and assigned the status of senior priest, restricted, the archdiocese said. Mendicoa is retired, a church spokeswoman said. “In reaching this decision, Cardinal Sean O’Malley reaffirmed his care and concern for all persons impacted by the reality of sexual abuse of children,’’ the archdiocese said in a statement. Terry McKiernan, codirector of BishopAccountability.org, said, “I think our concern with this case and with all the cases that are reviewed by the archdiocese . . . [is that] we don’t know anything about how they reached this determination.’’

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Priest from Hempfield charged with abuse

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The Tribune Review (triblive.com) (Pennsylvania)

Published: Thursday, April 19, 2012, 2:57 p.m.
Updated: Tuesday, April 24, 2012

By Paul Peirce
Tribune-Review

A Catholic priest from Virginia with Westmoreland County ties has been placed on leave after being accused of sexual misconduct in the 1990s involving an underage boy.

The Rev. Terry W. Specht, 59, who was raised in Hempfield and graduated from St. Vincent College near Latrobe, denies the allegation.

The allegations are being investigated by the Diocese of Arlington, Va., and Fairfax County Police.

Specht has been a pastor at Holy Spirit Church in Annandale since 2007. He also served as chaplain and assistant principal at Paul VI Catholic High School from 2000 to 2004.

He was director of the diocesan child-protection office from 2004 through 2011. That office was responsible for conducting background checks on diocesan employees who could come into contact with children and provide training to diocesan workers, according to the Associated Press.

The diocese reported the alleged victim contacted the diocese in late January and would have been a teenager at the time of the alleged misconduct.

According to a church biography, Specht was a convert to the Catholic faith and entered the church in 1984 after graduating from St. Vincent. He joined the Navy and for 21 years worked as a sailor on submarines. He was ordained May 18, 1996.

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‘It’s been 33 years in the making’: ex-priest charged over sexual abuse

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The Sydney Morning Herald

May 1, 2012 – 2:36PM

Nick Ralston, Lisa Davies

Sexual abuse complainant, Nikki Wells says she’s relieved that a retired Catholic priest has been charged over the alleged sexual abuse of four children.

A retired Catholic priest and a one-time close personal friend of the Attorney-General, Greg Smith, has been charged over alleged sexual abuse of four children in the 1970s and ’80s.

Father Finian Egan, 77, who maintains his innocence, arrived at Ryde police station by appointment shortly before 11am.

It is understood his legal representative was already at the station.

"This government has no plans to privatise any jails - unlike the previous government, which privatised Parklea jail" ... Attorney-General Greg Smith.

Attorney-General Greg Smith … he has come under fire for an alleged claim he made. Photo: Helen Nezdropa

Mr Egan walked out of the police station and into a waiting ambulance after the charges were laid.

He has been the subject of a police investigation that began in 2010 following complaints he abused five children 30 years ago.

A number of women went to police following media reports about previous claims made within the Catholic Church.

He has now been charged with 16 counts of indecent assault and one count of rape, relating to alleged assaults while he was a priest in Sydney and the central coast, police said.

The charges related to the alleged assaults of an 11-year-old girl and a 16-year-old girl at Carlingford in 1979 and 1987 and a 17-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy at The Entrance in 1972 and 1973.

Mr Egan was granted conditional bail and will appear in Ryde Local Court on May 23.

Police said the charges laid were consistent with the law at the time of the alleged offences. They were the equivalent of the modern offences indecent assault, aggravated indecent assault, sexual intercourse without consent and aggravated sexual assault.

Police said their investigations were continuing.

Two of Mr Egan’s alleged female victims were waiting at Ryde police station when he arrived.

He had to be helped out of the car by detectives before he made the short walk inside with the aid of a walking stick.

One of the women, Nikki Wells, said she did not think this day would ever arrive.

“It’s been 33 years in the making; it’s been the majority of my life that I’ve been waiting for this day,” she said.

“The last four years I’ve been advocating for his arrest. It was such a relief to see him walk into the station.”

In 2010, the Herald revealed that the church’s independent assessor had upheld claims of sexual molestation against Mr Egan after two sisters complained they were groped by him in the 1980s.

He was subsequently suspended from the church but was allowed to officiate at eight services while under investigation.

Mr Smith has also come under fire for his alleged links to the case, after a claim that he said one of Mr Egan’s alleged victims was “just trying to get $1 million from the church”.

Mr Smith has strongly denied these claims and said he “would never suggest any victim of sexual abuse was motivated by a desire to claim a financial payout”.

______________________________

Catholic priest charged, taken to hospital

The Sydney Morning Herald

May 1, 2012 – 6:14PM

Vincent Morello

AAP

A retired Catholic priest and friend of the NSW attorney general was taken to hospital after being charged with a raft of child sexual offences dating back to the 1970s.

Finian Egan, 77, left a Sydney police station in an ambulance after being questioned and charged with 17 offences on Tuesday.

Attorney-General Greg Smith has been a long-time friend of Egan, who drove himself to Ryde police station on Tuesday morning (AEST), where detectives escorted him inside.

He was arrested and questioned over alleged sexual offences against four children, police said in a statement.

The offences allegedly occurred between 1972 and 1987 while Egan was serving as a priest to parishes in Sydney and on the Central Coast.

He was granted strict conditional bail before an ambulance arrived at the police station about 1.15pm and transported him to Ryde hospital where he was treated for heart problems.

Two of his alleged victims waited outside Ryde police station.

“I think I’m in shock,” Nikki Wells, 43, told AAP.

“It’s quite surreal because it’s been such a long process. Really, it’s been 30 years in the making.”

Kellie Roche, 41, said her family emigrated from Ireland to Australia in 1981 and bypassed their local parish to attend a parish with a priest with an Irish background.

“And he was welcomed into our family as if he was a family member because we’re all Irish,” Ms Roche told AAP.

“We needed somewhere in a new country where we could fit in and we felt like we fit in better in a parish where there’s an Irish priest.”

Both Ms Wells and Ms Roche brought complaints to the church and settled in 2010 for six and five-figure sums respectively, they said.

In NSW Parliament’s question time on Tuesday, Mr Smith was asked if he told a priest in a meeting last year that an alleged victim of sexual assault had only brought a case against Egan to get $1 million out of the church.

“I understand he was charged today,” Mr Smith said.

“The question relates to a possible complainant in those matters. It would therefore be inappropriate for me to make any further comment.”

Opposition Leader John Robertson said Mr Smith should be sacked if his alleged comments were true.

“Mr Smith should have distanced himself and his office from his good friend Finian Egan,” Mr Robertson said in a statement.

Ms Wells questioned why Egan was charged in March, eight months after police referred the matter to the DPP and one month after Ms Wells went public with her allegations.

A spokeswoman for the DPP declined to comment on the specifics of the investigation.

Egan will appear in Ryde Local Court on May 23.

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UPDATED: Witness unleashes fury at Catholic church during priest abuse trial

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The Post Mercury (Pottstown, PA)

Posted: 04/30/12 03:50 pm

Updated: 04/30/12 05:23 pm

By Maryclaire Dale

Associated Press

(Updated at 5:22 p.m.) PHILADELPHIA — A 47-year-old man has unleashed his fury at the Roman Catholic church, staring down a church official in a Philadelphia courtroom as he described how a priest forced him to engage in sex acts when he was a boy.

The man glared Monday at defendant Monsignor William Lynn and broke down when he recalled telling his mother about the alleged abuse by defrocked priest David Sicoli (suh-KOL’-ee).

The Associated Press generally does not name possible sex-abuse victims. A working phone number for Sicoli in Sea Isle, N.J., could not be found.

The 61-year-old Lynn is charged with endangering children by keeping accused priests in ministry as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004. He has pleaded not guilty.His lawyers argue that he took orders from the cardinal.

EARLIER VERSION OF THIS STORY

PHILADELPHIA — A man accusing a priest of sexual assault dropped a separate allegation against the same priest, the judge in an internal Catholic church trial testified Monday.

Monsignor Kevin Quirk, a canon lawyer who presided over Brennan’s 2008 church trial, took the stand Monday in the Rev. James Brennan’s criminal priest-abuse trial in Philadelphia.

Quirk, now in West Virginia, detailed allegations that Brennan sexually assaulted a 14-year-old during a 1996 sleepover at the priest’s apartment.

On cross-examination, Quirk said he never delved into the man’s second allegation because the accuser withdrew that complaint. That involved an accusation that Brennan abused the teen — apparently in a garden shed — when he was performing court-ordered community service at the parish.

Defense lawyer William Brennan, who is not related to his client, noted that the jury has heard about priests accused of molesting a dozen boys over many years, but James Brennan was removed quickly after the archdiocese received the complaint in 2006, because of new church guidelines on handling abuse complaints.

“Brennan gets one accuser who backs off the shed story, and he’s on trial?” the defense lawyer asked Quirk.

Prosecutors objected, and Quirk was not allowed to answer.

Quirk spent several hours on the witness stand Monday, reading Brennan’s testimony from the canon trial into the record. The outcome of the church trial is not yet clear, but the 48-year-old Brennan remains a priest.

According to Quirk, canon law dictates that witnesses give sworn testimony at church trials, but the accused priests do not take an oath before testifying.

Brennan admitted during the canon trial that he showed the 14-year-old pornography on his computer and that they slept in the same bed, but he denied any physical contact with him.

The sleepover took place in Chester County, while the priest was on leave. He admitted to the archdiocese that another teen lived with him for several months at the family’s request.

The late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua noted in a file that Brennan sought leave in 1996 to deal with his own childhood sexual abuse. Brennan later denied saying that he had been sexually abused.

He has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges, which include attempted rape.

Brennan met the accuser in about 1990 when he worked at a parish in Newtown, Bucks County. He worked at Cardinal O’Hara High School from 1991 to 1996, where he said he became close to a half-dozen students from the theater crew.

A group of nuns complained then to the archdiocese that Brennan was living with several teens or young men, and that they had loud parties.

Monsignor William Lynn, the archdiocese’s longtime secretary for clergy, is on trial with Brennan, charged with endangering children by leaving dozens of accused priests in ministry.

 

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Priest admitted letting teen watch porn, sharing bed with him

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philly.com

April 30, 2012

By John P. Martin and Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writers

The Rev. James J. Brennan told church investigators four years ago that he let a 14-year-old boy view online pornography and share his bed in 1996 but denied that he touched the teen or exposed himself, according to documents revealed Monday at his landmark clergy sex-abuse trial.

Brennan told his interrogators at a 2008 canonical proceeding that his decision to let the boy view the images and sleep next to him that night was “borderline” inappropriate. Still, he said he was blindsided when the young man came forward after a decade and accused him of sexual assault.

“I was just devastated,” Brennan testified, according to a transcript read to jurors.

His statements emerged as the trial against Brennan and Msgr. William J. Lynn began its sixth week, and on a day that ended with one witness breaking down and lashing out at the church for protecting the parish priest he said repeatedly molested him.

Prosecutors and Brennan’s defense lawyer had clashed in recent weeks over if and how his statements to church investigators could be used at the criminal trial. Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington told Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina that the transcript included potentially incriminating statements.

But the 55-page document, read aloud in court by Msgr. Kevin M. Quirk, a West Virginia priest who served as the presiding judge at Brennan’s church trial, wasn’t a smoking gun. In it, Brennan repeatedly contradicted the testimony of his accuser, a 30-year-old Bucks County man who said the priest, a longtime family friend, molested him during a sleepover at Brennan’s West Chester townhouse.

That accuser had previously testified that Brennan showed him pornography, wanted to compare their private parts, encouraged him to masturbate and forced him to sleep in the same bed. There, he said, Brennan allegedly pulled him close and pressed his genitals against the boy.

In the transcript read to jurors, Brennan said they slept clothed on opposite sides of the king-size mattress, the only bed in his townhouse. He said it was the boy, not he, who asked about penis sizes and erection. He repeatedly denied any physical contact and said the teen never objected.

“Is it possible you touched him?” Quirk asked during the 2008 hearing, according to the transcript.

“No,” Brennan replied.

“Did you attempt to hold him close to you?” the judge asked.

“Not that I recall,” Brennan said.

The priest said he agreed to let the boy look at online pornography because the teen threatened to toss his computer out the window. Later, Brennan said, “I’m thinking to myself: What the hell did I just do, and boy was that stupid.”

The accuser reported his allegation to the archdiocese in 2006. The outcome of the canonical trial is unclear. Brennan, 48, remains on restricted ministry.

Brennan’s lawyer, William J. Brennan, who is unrelated to his client, has claimed the accuser fabricated the allegation because he was jealous of the priest, or in a bid to get money or to explain a decade of drug use and petty crime.

During his cross-examination of Quirk, he noted that the accused priest voluntarily answered questions at the church proceeding. And that when the allegation came to light, church officials had adopted a zero-tolerance policy that called for a swift removal, regardless of proof. “You’re aware that only one individual has made an allegation against this man?” the lawyer asked.

“That’s right,” Quirk replied.

The prosecutors’ decision to use the transcript is part of a larger strategy to try to convict the defendants with their own words. They also have read to jurors volumes of testimony that Lynn gave to a grand jury about his investigations into accused priests during his tenure as secretary for clergy between 1992 and 2004.

He is accused of endangerment for not removing Brennan from ministry despite signs that he might abuse minors. Accusers of other priests have also testified, offering accounts that prosecutors say demonstrate that Lynn and other church leaders routinely ignored or failed to act on credible allegations of child sex-abuse.

One of those accusers, a 47-year-old Bucks County man, told jurors Monday how he was repeatedly sexually assaulted as a boy by the Rev. David Sicoli, an assistant pastor at Immaculate Conception in Levittown.

He said the priest showered him with gifts and attention, took him to the movies and a Beatlemania concert, taught him how to drive in his white Chevy Citation or on trips to his Sea Isle City house.

In time, he said, Sicoli began sexual assaulting him and demanding he reciprocate, the man said. He recalled driving with the priest to get Phillies playoff tickets in 1980 and Sicoli performing oral sex on him in the car. Sicoli often got him drunk and routinely plied him with alcohol in visits to bars like the Red Garter in North Wildwood.

“I would go to bed clothed and wake up naked with him next to me,” he said.

Breaking into sobs on the witness stand, the man said he kept the abuse a secret until telling his mother in 1998.

The man had been named as a possible victim in letters sent to church officials in 1983, six years after the first allegations emerged against Sicoli. Those letters became part of the files that Lynn reviewed when he became secretary for clergy in the early 1990s.

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