A Havertown pastor testified Wednesday that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sent a priest to his parish in 2002 without telling him that the man had been caught with gay sadomasochistic videos and a sexually graphic love letter he wrote to a seventh-grade boy.
The Rev. Henry McKee, pastor of Sacred Heart Church, said nearly three years passed before he learned of the Rev. Michael Murtha's background.
McKee was one of four priests called to the witness stand Wednesday as prosecutors sought to show how Msgr. William J. Lynn and other church leaders shuffled and protected priests suspected of sexual misconduct or abuse.
Wednesday's testimony created an uncomfortable but potentially recurring scenario at the trial: a parade of priests taking the witness stand and discussing the sexual habits or proclivities of other priests, all for the prosecution of a monsignor that all knew and some clearly liked.
McKee said Lynn told him almost nothing about Murtha's background when the secretary of clergy asked if he would accept the priest at Sacred Heart in 2002. Among other duties, McKee asked Murtha to train and manage the parish's altar boys and girls.
Earlier Wednesday, jurors heard a former student at St. John Neumann High School in South Philadelphia describe how an archdiocesan priest stalked him, had him removed from a class, locked him in a conference room, then touched his leg and pressed him to talk about homosexuality. "I told you I'd find you," the Rev. Francis Trauger allegedly told the boy, then 15, in 1991.
The priest ordered the boy to kneel and unzip his pants, but their encounter abruptly ended when a faculty member began banging on the door, according to the former student, now 36.
Trauger is one of nearly two dozen priests who are not charged in the case, but who prosecutors say jurors need to hear about to understand the archdiocese's long-standing practices in responding to sex-abuse allegations.
Pretty disgusting stuff. But there's more and it wasn't just boys who were targeted notwithstanding the Vatican's efforts to blame all sex abuse on gays. Here are highlights from another story:
She was a 13-year-old girl, fifth child of seven in a devout Catholic family in suburban Roslyn whose mother attended Mass once or twice daily. But the girl dreaded Sunday mornings. Not because of a crisis of faith but because she knew it would mean another morning of groping by the Rev. Albert T. Kostelnick.
Questioned by Assistant District Attorney Mark Cipolletti, the woman testified that her mother volunteered her to work in the St. John's rectory serving meals to the priests on Saturday's from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and Sundays from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The woman, now in her mid-50s, told a Philadelphia jury this morning about how Kostelnick, now retired, fondled her for two years as she worked in the rectory of St. John of the Cross church in Roslyn - and then did the same to two of her sisters who followed her into the job.
"I didn't know what to do," the woman told the Common Pleas Court jury. "I felt helpless and trapped. My parents expected me to work."
She earned $5 for her work, the woman said, and endured the physical attentions of Kostelnick. The woman said the priest, who lived at St. John's, taught at an archdiocesan high school.
She said Kostelnick would dine alone at the end of a 12-foot-long conference table, farthest from the closed door. As she served his meal, she continued, the priest began holding her hands and making small talk. She said he then gradually moved his hands to her breasts.
She never told her parents at the time, she said, because they were so devout. "They wouldn't have believed me and, if they did, they wouldn't have done anything," she said.
According to the 2005 grand jury report, the priest admitted in 2004 to the Archdiocese review board his long-standing habit of fondling the breasts of young girls. By the time he was removed in 2004, the Archdiocese had reports from 18 alleged female victims.
Every Catholic who continues to give money to the Catholic Church at the local parish level ultimate helps fund the foul, nasty senior members of the hierarchy who allowed such horrors to happen or who, to date have refused to force a thorough house cleaning of those who allowed such abuse of children and youths. And yes, those with unclean hands include the current occupant of the throne of St. Peter. Had I remained a Catholic, I think I would feel physically dirty via guilt by association.
Oh, and can anyone explain to me why GOP politicians with any shred of morality are kissing the assess of the members of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops?
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