NEW YORK — A decade after the clergy sex-abuse crisis erupted, the first Roman Catholic church official has been criminally convicted for failing to alert parishes or police about known predators.
Advocates for children said the verdict Friday against Monsignor William Lynn sends a message that diocesan officials who supervise priests must report offenders or face prosecution.
Lynn was secretary of the clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004. A jury in Philadelphia found him guilty of one count of child endangerment but acquitted him of conspiracy and a second child endangerment count.
Lynn was far from the only diocesan official in the U.S. who kept accused priests in parish assignments.
Thousands of case files made public through lawsuits and civil investigations revealed that consistent inaction by church officials in the face of abuse claims in earlier years left a trail of victims in dioceses nationwide. About 16,000 claims have been made against Catholic clergy since 1950, according to studies commissioned by the U.S. bishops.
So, why is Lynn the only American church official convicted so far for letting this happen? Here’s an explanation:
Q: Why is it so difficult to successfully prosecute bishops and other church leaders who mishandled abuse claims?
A: Most of the abuse cases that have come to light in recent years involve allegations of wrongdoing from decades ago — far beyond the statutes of limitation for criminal charges and often for civil lawsuits.
Since 2002, when the scandal broke open with one case in the Archdiocese of Boston, a few prosecutors have struck deals with local dioceses to avoid indictment, and eight grand juries have investigated how local dioceses responded to abuse claims.
All the grand jury reports found evidence that church officials consistently protected accused clergy more than children. However, only one such report found enough evidence within time limits to prosecute a diocesan official: the Philadelphia grand jury investigation last year that led to Lynn’s conviction.
Q: Haven’t several states extended the statutes of limitation in response to the abuse scandal?
A: Some states have changed their laws to give victims several more years to file civil lawsuits. Three states — California, Delaware and Hawaii — also opened a one-time window of at least a year for accusers to sue the people who allegedly abused them as children. However, criminal statutes of limitation are a different story. Even if lawmakers extend the time limits now for a criminal prosecution, it wouldn’t apply to old crimes.
Q: If government authorities can’t prosecute the diocesan officials, can’t the church at least hold them responsible?
A: The toughened child safety policy the bishops enacted in 2002 contains a discipline plan for abusive priests but not for the bishops who failed to report them to police. Only the pope has authority over bishops, and none has been forced out for mishandling abuse cases from decades ago.
Q: Does Lynn’s conviction have any impact beyond Philadelphia?
A: Yes. Timothy Lytton, a legal scholar and author of “Holding Bishops Accountable,” on how civil lawsuits over clergy abuse helped create pressure to reform, said the verdict is a warning to any church official wavering about keeping his pledge to report child sex-abuse claims to civil authorities and remove offenders from church work.
