The Silence Of The Archbishop And The Inquirer

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, has called for an investigation of the local district attorney's office. He wants to know if any prosecutor had a financial stake in the criminal convictions of three priests and a former Catholic school teacher.

In response, the disciplinary board of the state Supreme Court has assigned disciplinary counsel Donna M. Snyder to investigate.

Meanwhile, the National Catholic Reporter, the paper that led the way in exposing the national scandal of clerical sex abuse, has run an editorial questioning the credibility of the district attorney's star witness.

Here's what NCR had to say about the witness responsible for putting three priests and a former teacher in jail: "The discrepancies between Billy Doe's accounts to the archdiocese and later to the grand jury are not minor, they are utterly different versions of reality."

The NCR editorial also called into question the conduct of the district attorney's office: "Years of elaborate deceptions by Catholic leaders are hardly avenged if the response is more cunning deception by civil society." That's why NCR labeled the D.A.'s prosecution, which may have relied on a phony plea bargain, "a shallow victory." The newspaper called on Seth Williams to answer the questions originally posed months ago by this blog, questions that the D.A. continues to stonewall.

So we know where a couple of national institutions stand on the local district attorney's self-described "historic" prosecution of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

What about two local institutions that have not been heard from?

There's a prominent leader of a local Catholic organization who continues to publicly remain silent about the convictions of the three priests and the school teacher: Archbishop Charles J. Chaput.

We're also wondering why The Philadelphia Inquirer, the city's paper of record, is snoozing through yet another news cycle involving the district attorney's flawed investigation, suspect star witness, and error-filled grand jury report.

Thanks to another ploy by the Catholic League, that slumber should end on Monday.

Chaput, as he has in the past, declined to talk to bigtrial.net.

"While we appreciate the opportunity, the Archbishop will not be commenting on those convictions," Kenneth A. Gavin, the archdiocese's director of communications, wrote in an May 14 email.

Back on March 23, I sent the archbishop an email outlining the case that the credibility of Billy Doe might be lacking. The next day, Francis X. Maier, special assistant to the archbishop, responded in an email by saying that Chaput was "grateful for the information. As was the case in Denver, the archbishop is committed to respecting and cooperating fully with law enforcement and the courts."

"Nonetheless, the archdiocese does have concerns about what happened in these trials," Maier wrote. "The archdiocese is doing everything appropriate within the criminal and civil legal systems to seek a just resolution for all involved, with the guidance of good legal counsel ... I hope this helps. Have a blessed Holy Week."

I'll say this about the archdiocese; they may stiff you, but they sure are polite. When you're getting stonewalled by the district attorney's office, his spokesperson doesn't even bother to respond. The end result, however, remains the same -- you wind up with no answers.

Donohue, the outspoken president of the Catholic League, said Chaput knew the Catholic League was going to get involved in the controversy over the local D.A.'s prosecution of the archdiocese.

"I didn't confer with him," Donohue said of Chaput, "I just told him, after we got together. I have been corresponding with him for years on all sorts of things -- he gets back faster than any bishop I've ever dealt with -- and his terseness on this issue speaks volumes. I'm sure he would love to talk, but simply can't."

Archbishop Chaput has visited Msgr. Lynn in jail at least twice. Last July, Chaput stopped by the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Northeast Philadelphia, to see Lynn, who at the time, was in protective custody. The archbishop met with Lynn for 90 minutes, but what they talked about was not divulged.

"Their conversation was private," Gavin, a spokesman for the archbishop, said at the time.

Chaput is not known to have any contact with Father Charles Engelhardt, one of the convicted priests. That makes sense because Engelhardt is a member of an independent order, the oblates of St. Francis, and reports to a different boss.

Chaput, however, has met with Father James J. Brennan, the only defendant in the archdiocese prosecution to beat the rap. A jury hung on two charges last year against Father Brennan, including an 11-1 split for acquittal on the main charge against the priest, of attempted rape. Father Brennan is scheduled to be retried Oct. 21.

Brennan's lawyer, however, William J. Brennan, no relation, was not happy with how the archbishop has treated his client.

The archdiocese shelled out at least $75,000 a week for four lawyers to defend Msgr. Lynn during a trial that lasted 13 weeks, which amounts to at least $975,000 in legal fees. But the archdiocese refused to contribute a nickel toward Father Brennan's defense, his lawyer said.

On the eve of trial, William Brennan says, he asked a lawyer who represents the archdiocese to get the archbishop to simply call Father Brennan and "wish him well."

Even though Father Brennan is "a fully ordained Roman Catholic priest who looks to the bishop as his spiritual father," William Brennan said, "that request was denied."

William Brennan says he also doesn't understand why anyone from the archdiocese never inquired about either Brennan's perspective on last year's trial. If not out of compassion, how about from a "pragmatic standpoint," William Brennan said, because the archdiocese remains liable in a civil suit filed by Father Brennan's accuser, Mark Bukowski.

The archdiocese is treating another one of his clients the same way, William Brennan said. He was speaking of Father Andrew McCormack, a suspended priest accused of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in 1997.

William Brennan says he remains puzzled "why the archdiocese freezes out ordained priests in cases with sole accusers, where the accusers have a lot of bad baggage and shaky stories."

The lawyer said he would continue to aggressively represent both clients, whom, he said, are still presumed innocent.

You'd think somebody at the archdiocese would be curious how William Brennan, working for peanuts, was able to pull off something Lynn's million-dollar defense team was unable to do -- get his client off. 

Meanwhile, the Inquirer, which has refrained from reporting on the controversy over the D.A.'s prosecution of the church, is about to be drawn into it anyway.

This week, the Catholic League tried to take out a two-page ad in the Inquirer that would have been published on Monday, May 20th. The ad, which would have cost $58,000, was intended to draw public attention to the D.A.'s flawed prosecution of the Philadelphia archdiocese. The newspaper, however, refused to publish it.

William K. Marimow, editor of the Inquirer, did not respond to a request for comment.

Donohue, however, says he will have plenty to say about censorship and media bias on Monday, when he talks to reporters.