Click here to read: “Church lawyer: Philly cardinal, aides lied to me,” by Maryclaire Dale, Associated Press, Daily Times, May 14, 2012
Click here to read: “Church lawyer: Philly cardinal, aides lied to me,” by Maryclaire Dale, Associated Press, Daily Times, May 14, 2012
http://www.priestabusetrial.com/2012/05/shredded-memo-dead-cardinal-and-bunch.html#more
Kathy…it frankly gets tiresome. Now we have diocesan legal counsel and a bishop indicating each other is lying…we have ‘shredded lists’ of abusers that have been mislayed, misplaced, forgotten, or a safe has been blasted to access them…if it weren’t so vile it would be just plain embarrassing…but it IS vile so it’s just plain evil.
Philly.com today
The list included diagnosed pedophiles and priests who remained in active ministry despite admitting or being accused of abusing minors. It was locked away in the archdiocese’s Center City offices for 18 years, through two grand-jury investigations and countless requests for it, until Coyne said he found it in a file given to him by a church official six years ago.
But even that is disputed.
Minutes after the lawyer testified, Bishop Timothy Senior, a top archdiocesan administrator, took the stand and denied seeing the file with the list or giving either to Coyne for safekeeping in 2006.
“With all due respect, bishop, it sounds like you’re blaming him and he’s blaming you,” Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington said.
“I don’t know how to respond to that,” Senior said.
And just for fun, from the same Philly .com article, today…apparently there were two non ‘shredded’ memos….see if you can make any sense out of this:
“A secret memo suggests Bevilacqua had directed all copies to be shredded. But one was found in a locked safe in a file room near Lynn’s former offices in 2006. In a safe on another floor, officials this year found a separate memo signed and witnessed by two of the cardinal’s top aides, Msgr. James E. Molloy and the Rev. Joseph Cistone, describing the shredding directive.
Coyne said the memos indicated Bevilacqua was aware of the list, but he said he could not recall if he had asked the cardinal about it. He was more certain he asked Cistone and Molloy.
“Both of those men lied to you?” defense lawyer Thomas Bergstrom asked.
“It appears so,” Coyne said.
Molloy has died. Cistone now heads the Diocese of Saginaw, Mich.
When Coyne agreed with the prosecutor that Lynn must have also lied because the list and other memos drafted by Lynn were found a safe in a suite of offices he ran, Bergstrom erupted more forcefully than he had at any point in the two-month trial.
“You heard that for the first time today!” he challenged Coyne. “You didn’t think he lied to you at all, did you?”
Coyne backed down.
“I did not,” he replied.
The prosecutor took another angle. “Or, like, everybody lied tyou?”
“That’s fair,” the witness said.
They’re permitted to Joan, you should know that by now.
‘Mental reservation remember’.
Mental Reservations! People don’t believe me when I tell them about that doctrine. It is the catholic comunity that should have real mental and spiritual reservations about church leadership, don’t you think!
Amnesiacs? Invertebrates? Chameleons? One never knows who will be walking out of 222 N. 17th St. next and making their way down to the Criminal Justice Center.
The missing, recovered, shredded memo……ah, the tangled web (of lies) we weave.
The truth is better than fiction. You can’t make this stuff up. This trial would make a great movie. The tragedy is that children were put last. Thankfully, the media and the courts are shedding bright lights on what was carefully hidden in darkness.
http://cliparts101.com/files/296/23702FCA461A931657F913C9E21577F1/lrg_See_no_evil_hear_no_evil_speak_no_evil.png
I was trying to copy a picture of the 3 wise monkeys, See No Evil, Speak No Evil and Hear No Evil. That is the image I can not get out of my head after reading these articles.
Here’s one from the Ski archives…….quote of Timothy Coyne, former archdiocesan in-house counsel, as reported in the National Catholic Reporter in 1999
In 1999, the National Catholic Reporter relayed comments Coyne delivered to priests, nuns, and laypersons attending a Seton Hall University Law School Program titled “Avoiding the Pitfalls of Church-Related Work.”
“No matter how vigilant a pastor or principal is, he or she may still face a lawsuit,” said Coyne, who represents the Philadelphia archdiocese and various religious orders. “The little old lady who says her beads daily in church will sue you if she slips and falls in church,” he told the Reporter. Coyne told priests at the event that they should regard lawyers as their friends—advising them to call their lawyers for advice, even before a chancery or insurer.
They kept the list and did not destroy it……………they didn’t even trust each other………..and they want us to trust them………..the sad irony
The second part of that quote seems apropos…oh,what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive…having read Cardinal Bevilaqua’s testimony to the grand jury and his mantra of ” I can’t recall ” , today’s testimony seems like more of the same …very sad!
Lies upon lies. Deceit after deceit. Cover up after cover up. That is the culture and history of the hierarchy. No one ever comes to their senses. No one ever follows their conscience. No ever quits. They OBEY the groupthink. They follow the modus operandi.
Our religious leaders are a bunch of unconvicted felons.
Bwahahahahahaha….bwahahaha…
I can’t remember. I don’t recall. I forgot about it. She didn’t inform me.
Sounds vaguely familiar to the press conference, doesn’t it? “I wasn’t here then. She can speak to this better than I can.” Same song, different stanza.
Nothing has changed. My only hope is they have proof that one of the them is the liar, so they can be charged for perjury.
I’ve heard 6 year olds play the blame game better than this.
I see a SCHEME of ‘ FRAUDULENT CONCEALMENT ‘ orchestrated by the archdiocese and aided by politicians and law firms in their pocket . Shame on the politicians in Harrisburg who are stalling legislation that will give those Victims who choose to come forward an opportunity to tell their story, what else and who else is the archdiocese hiding ?
It appears that lynn who created the list along with others in the archdiocese had personal knowledge that list existed and concealed this fact, and kept predators in place. The attempts by coyne,senior and oliver to feign ignorance fooled no one. The only time I heard a truthful statement is when coyne called lynn a liar.
I hope another Grand Jury Investigation convenes and the investigation continues.
So do I. And the next phase must include Rigali as well as any other clerics who have been part of this scandal, whether they remain part of the Philly Archdiocese or are serving other dioceses – even as bishops.
Boy do I regret the fact that I am not still teaching religion at Bishop McDevitt High School in Wyncote to freshman and juniors. I did so for one year in 1998. I particularly liked the junior course in Morality and Justice. Just think of all of the special projects the students and teacher could be working on given the wonderful issues of “morality” and “justice” that flow from archdiocesan headquarters day after day.
Found this on the web re Coyne’s admin leave as AD General Counsel.
http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202546202671
What caught my attention is the line that the AD has hired a boutique law firm to handle all future litigation. I have every expectation that the AD and the PA Catholic Conference will fight SOL reform with all its might.
I’m thinking of the verse from Matthew about false prophets, “Thus by their fruits you will know them.”
Reading some of these articles I get the impression that the Church is trying to hold out until the accused Bishops die. Didn’t the Church authorities also argue that Marcial Maciel Degollado (founder of the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement) was too old and infirm to prosecute? And the euphemism of “boundary violations” is itself a violation of the truth, just like in the past when the term “fondled” was used for digital penetration/rape. Nothing fond about that – as I recall!.
You hit the nail on the head Mona, in Australia they also elevate them to jobs on the Bishop’s Conference, maybe as insulation, but the day will come that tactic won’t work either.