Monsignor convicted of endangerment
Monsignor convicted of endangerment in groundbreaking trial about his mishandling of sex-abuse claims
Prosecutors argued he tried to cover up child sex abuse allegations
Monsignor William Lynn was found guilty on Friday of one count of endangering the welfare of a child, making him the highest-ranking U.S. Roman Catholic official convicted in the church child sex abuse scandal.
The jury acquitted Lynn, who oversaw hundreds of priests in the Philadelphia Archdiocese, on two other counts, conspiracy and another charge of child endangerment.
The jury deliberated 13 days before reaching the mixed decision in the trial of Lynn, 61, who for 12 years served as secretary of the clergy.
Lynn faces up to seven years in prison on the child endangerment conviction.
According to Lynn's testimony, the cardinal (Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who died in January at age 88) said any mention of an accused priest's move from a parish should cite health reasons, never the accusations.
Testimony also showed Bevilacqua ordered the list of accused priests be destroyed, although a lone copy was found in an Archdiocese safe.
That list proved to be a key piece of evidence.
Some 3,000 civil lawsuits alleging abuse were filed in the United States between 1984 and 2009. An unknown number of complaints - believed to be vastly more - were settled privately, often with confidentiality agreements, experts say.
The church has paid out some $2 billion in settlements to victims, bankrupting a handful of dioceses. Hefty multi-million sums were paid out by Catholic Archdiocese in Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles. The Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, declared bankruptcy in 2009, and the Diocese of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, did so in 2011.
Lynn's trial was noteworthy because of its focus on the role of a church official accused not of molestation but of covering it up.
It raises questions of personal responsibility and how far someone such as Lynn could or should have stepped outside the rigors of the church hierarchy and whether strict obedience to church elders is defensible, experts said.
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