The man who leveled sex-abuse charges against an Archdiocesan priest took the stand last week to defend his claims.
The alleged victim, now 30, testified over a several-day period about the abuse he says he suffered at the hands of the Rev. James Brennan.
Brennan faces attempted rape and other charges stemming from the allegations. He is standing trial with Monsignor William Lynn, the first known church official in the nation to face child-endangerment charges for his role in allegedly helping to cover up abuse allegations.
Brennan was a priest at a Newtown parish where the alleged victim, identified as Mark, attended with his family in the 1990s.
Mark said Brennan, who was also a close family friend, showed him online sex chat rooms, exposed himself to him on church grounds and suggested they masturbate together. During an overnight visit in 1996, Brennan asked Mark to sleep in his bed and pressed his genitals against him.
Defense attorneys brought up Mark’s history of drug abuse and fraud charges and suggested he invented the abuse story, causing several outbursts from the witness.
“That man molested me,” Mark testified. “He knows it.”
As secretary for clergy from 1992-2004, under then-Archbishop Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, Lynn was tasked with investigating complaints against Archdiocesan priests, including those against Brennan.
Brennan was removed from active ministry in 2006 when Mark first made the allegations. The indictment that led to the charges against Brennan and Lynn indicated that, throughout the 1990s, multiple complaints were filed alleging Brennan’s inappropriate contact with young boys. Lynn consented to Brennan’s transfer to different parishes.
The trial — now in its third week and expected to last several months — has included a bevy of testimony about charges leveled against other priests, as prosecutors seek to illustrate the Archdiocese’s pervasive practice of failing to report allegations.
Last week, a police detective who has worked on child sex-abuse cases testified that an Archdiocesan priest molested him in the 1980s.
Several current Archdiocesan priests also detailed the complaints they made against fellow priests — regarding inappropriately close relationships with youth and possession of sexually explicit materials — that resulted in no consequences for the accused.
On Monday, a nun testified that she was fired from a suburban parish after complaining that a parish priest, the Rev. Edward DePaoli, was receiving pornographic magazines in the mail.
Sister Joan Scary said that in 1996, she sent an anonymous note, along with one of the magazines, to Bevilacqua, and was summarily terminated by the parish pastor.
Ten years previously, DePaoli was convicted of possessing child pornography, which was not divulged to parishioners.
Brennan and Lynn have both pleaded not guilty.