it's about time....Supervising Priest Goes on Trial in Abuse Case

[spanone]

The landmark trial of a senior official of the Philadelphia Archdiocese who is accused of shielding priests who sexually abused children and reassigning them to unwary parishes began on Monday with prosecutors charging that the official “paid lip service to child protection and protected the church at all costs.”

The defendant, Msgr. William J. Lynn, 61, is the first Roman Catholic supervisor in the country to be tried on felony charges of endangering children and conspiracy — not on allegations that he molested children himself, but that he protected suspect priests and reassigned them to jobs where they continued to rape, grope or otherwise abuse boys and girls.

One of Monsignor Lynn’s lines of defense was indicated in an opening statement when his lawyers suggested that he had acted responsibly and reported allegations of abuse to higher officials, including a recently deceased cardinal.

The trial is a milestone, legal experts said, in the legal battles lasting decades over sex abuse by priests. For years, many Catholic dioceses have been battered by civil suits seeking monetary damages for failing to stop errant priests. More recently, prosecutors have brought criminal charges against abusers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/us/supervising-priest-goes-on-trial-in-philadelphia.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print