Tag: Philadelphia

Wheeling WV Bishop accused, his cathedral rector balking at giving testimony

 

Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment
Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Wheeling Intelligencer presents the Bishop Bransfield story, earlier part of a Phila. Inquirer story, in the starkest of terms:

PHILADELPHIA- A man testified Wednesday in a clergy abuse trial that a priest raped him in the 1970s at a beach house owned by the Most Rev. Michael J. Bransfield and that he was told that Bransfield, who currently serves as bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, also sexually abused a boy.

The 48-year-old man also testified that he saw Bransfield with a car full of boys at a farm owned by his accused abuser, the Rev. Stanley Gana. The witness said that Gana told him Bransfield was having sex with the boy who was in the front seat.

Another man has testified that Bransfield had a lewd conversation with him.

The testimony came at the trial of the Rev. James Brennan, who’s accused in a 1996 child-sex assault.

Bransfield has not been charged, nor has he ever been charged, the Intelligencer reports. Nor accused, as far as a monitoring of his history on the Internet can tell us.

The Wheeling diocese is withholding comment until “the facts and issues surrounding this testimony are made fully known to the Diocese,” except to urge Catholics “to remember all victims of sexual abuse and to pray for them and their families” and to dismiss the trial itself as a “circus” and part of a smear campaign by prosecutors.

“They seem to want to bludgeon witnesses, smear individuals not on trial, anything to bolster their persecution of the church,” the diocese said in a separate statement. “The trial appears to be evolving into a circus with no rules and boundaries.”

Apparently at issue is the appearance at the trial as a material witness of a Wheeling priest, Monsignor Kevin Quirk, rector of the cathedral. A local judge is expected to rule tomorrow (4/20) whether Monsignor Quirk is required to testify.

Criminalizing clergy cover-up

Cathedral Ss Peter and Paul
Cathedral altar, Phila.

“Unprecedented” and possibly with “national implications” is the indictment in Philadelphia of an archdiocesan official who did not remove sexually abusive priests from work with minors, says CNN senior Vatican analyst and veteran National Catholic Reporter writer John Allen.

Monsignor William Lynn, who served as the secretary for clergy [vicar for priests] . . . under then-Philadelphia Archbishop Anthony Bevilacqua, was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child in connection with . . . alleged assaults, Williams said.

From 1992 until 2004, Lynn was responsible for investigating reports that priests had sexually abused children, the district attorney’s office said.

The grand jury found that Lynn, 60, endangered children, including the alleged victims of those charged last week, by knowingly allowing dangerous priests to continue in the ministry in roles in which they had access to kids.

Allen explains:

“This is apparently the first time that a Catholic leader has been charged criminally for the cover-up as opposed to the abuse itself,” he said. “It sends a shot across the bow for bishops and other diocesan officials in other parts of the country, who have to wonder now if they’ve got criminal exposure, too.”

It’s a “quis custodiet custodes?” moment, the answer being apparently the law’s long arm.