The Philadelphia District Attorney last week filed charges against a former Archdiocesan official for his alleged role in covering up instances of sex abuse, in what is considered to be the first case of its kind.
Monsignor William Lynn, who served as the Archdiocesan secretary for clergy under former Archbishop Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, was arrested on two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Also arrested last week were the former Rev. Edward Avery, 68, and the Revs. Charles Engelhardt, 64, and James Brennan, 47. Police also arrested Bernard Shero, 48, a teacher at St. Jerome in the Northeast.
Avery, Engelhardt and Shero are all accused of raping the same male student at St. Jerome’s in the late 1990s, while Brennan, who also worked at St. Jerome, is accused of raping a teenage student at a suburban parish in 1996.
Brennan, Avery, Engelhardt and Shero face charges of rape, corruption of minors, aggravated assault and other charges. All four and Lynn were released Feb. 11 after posting bail.
The Archdiocese is now also facing a lawsuit filed Monday by a 28-year-old man who alleges he was molested by a seminarian in the early 1990s and also by a priest at Malvern Preparatory. The suit names as defendants the Archdiocese, current Archbishop Cardinal Justin Rigali, former Archbishop Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, Lynn and Archdiocesan victim-service officials, charging that the defendants conspired to cover up the case.
In addition to recommending the criminal charges, the grand-jury report suggested a complete overhaul of the Archdiocese’s reporting procedure. Following the report, the Archdiocese announced it has retained a consultant to advise Rigali, created a Delegate for Investigations position and hired psychologist Joseph Cronin for a newly created Clergy Support Associate position.
The grand-jury report that led to the arrests found that Lynn “knowingly allow[ed] dangerous priests to continue in the ministry in roles in which they had access to children.”
The report detailed that, according to documents furnished to the grand jury by the Archdiocese, Lynn and Bevilacqua were informed in 1992 that Avery was accused of assaulting another boy, James, in the 1970s and ’80s, who said Avery repeatedly plied him with alcohol and fondled him.
Following an Archdiocesan investigation, Lynn recommended to Bevilacqua that Avery be sent to St. John Vianney Hospital for evaluation, where he was found to have a mood disorder and alcohol-abuse problems. He spent several months in an in-patient program for sex offenders at the hospital, during which time the report states Bevilacqua instructed Lynn to tell parishioners that Avery had a health problem.
When Avery was discharged from the hospital in October 1993, hospital personnel recommended he be assigned to a ministry without exposure to adolescents and other vulnerable minorities and be admitted to a 12-step program. Lynn, however, recommended he be assigned to Our Lady of Ransom parish, which houses a grade school, in the Northeast, and Bevilacqua ultimately assigned him to St. Jerome, which also has a grade school. St. Jerome’s pastor, the Rev. Joseph Graham, testified before the grand jury that he was not aware of the allegations against Avery, and Lynn did not tell him he was assigned to an aftercare team to follow up on Avery’s case.
“The evidence before the grand jury makes clear that, after assigning Father Avery to live at St. Jerome, a parish with an elementary school, the Archdiocese hierarchy did virtually nothing to minimize the continued danger that the priest posed to children,” the report stated.
Avery was arrested last week in connection with allegations that he assaulted a fifth-grader at the school between 1998-99.
The boy, identified as Billy, served as an altar boy and told the grand jury he was first assaulted by Engelhardt, whom he said gave him wine and pornographic magazines before forcing him to engage in sex acts with him.
Billy said Engelhardt told Avery what happened, and Avery then approached him and assaulted him, telling him “God loves you and everything is OK.”
The following year, Billy said Shero offered him a ride home from school and raped him in his car.
Billy’s mother said she noticed a “dramatic change in his personality” during that time, as her son dropped out of sports and stopped socializing with his friends. She said he started smoking pot at age 11 and, by the time he was in high school, progressed to painkillers and later heroin, finally admitting to the abuse while in rehab.
Brennan is accused of raping a 14-year-old boy, identified as Mark, in 1996. Brennan had become friendly with Mark’s family during his ministry at St. Andrew’s Church in Newtown and allegedly showed him pornography and raped the teen during an overnight stay at his apartment.
The teen told his parents the following day, but the report said Brennan denied the rape and said Mark viewed the pornography on his own, an account the teen’s parents believed. As a result of the incident, the report says Mark developed “significant psychological and substance-abuse problems” and attempted suicide.
Brennan was appointed to St. Jerome’s in 1997 and Assumption B.V.M. the following year, during which time he wrote Lynn and requested assignment to a monastery.
He spent seven months in an abbey, then returned to parish ministry. He was removed in 2006 after Mark made the allegations.
Prior to the alleged rape, Lynn received “multiple formal complaints” alleging Brennan’s inappropriate contact with other boys. In particular, the report says he hosted loud parties in his residence during his time at Cardinal O’Hara High School, serving alcohol to minors, and had a male student living in his residence with him for several months, telling the nuns in the residence that the boy was his nephew.
In addition to the cases documented in the report, the grand jury also described a number of “representative cases” in which Lynn knowingly placed priests who’d been accused of abuse in positions where they could still have contact with minors.
The report alleges that more than three-dozen priests are still in active ministry despite accusations of inappropriate behavior or sexual abuse of minors.
Rigali released a statement last week saying that “there are no Archdiocesan priests in ministry today who have an admitted or established allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against them.”
On Wednesday, the Archdiocese announced it had placed three of the priests named in the report on a temporary leave and is continuing to review the cases.
The report states that the jurors, in reviewing Billy’s and Mark’s cases and the sweeping 2005 grand-jury report that alleged abuse by at least 63 Archdiocesan priests, were “appalled by the cynical and callous handling of clergy abuse by the Philadelphia Archdiocese hierarchy, up to and including the Cardinal.”
“We would like to hold Cardinal Bevilacqua accountable as well,” the report continued. “The grand jurors have no doubt that his knowing and deliberate actions during his tenure as Archbishop also endangered thousands of children in the Philadelphia Archdiocese,” noting, however, that there was insufficient evidence of wrongdoing in Billy’s or Mark’s case.
The jurors also said the cardinal’s health is a “consideration,” as the 87-year-old suffers from dementia.
The suit filed this week names two men included in the 2005 grand-jury report, former priest Martin Satchell, who underwent sex-abuse therapy in 1993 and left the priesthood in 2004, and the Rev. Richard Cochrane.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].