Bevilacqua insisted he needed "evidence in order to ask someone to step down."
And not just any evidence. Anonymous reports, Bevilacqua said, had "no value at all to me."
"Secondhand information," he added, lacked credibility.
That puzzled the jurors, who then asked Bevilacqua if he believed in the Gospels.
"Yes," assured the cardinal.
"But," Spade pressed, "it's the jurors' understanding that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written many years after the actual events," by those not present at the time.
"Yes," Bevilacqua agreed.
So, using the cleric's own logic, wouldn't that make the Gospels "secondhand information"?
Ten days of testimony
That testy exchange is but one of many jumping off 1,200-plus pages of secret testimony introduced in the criminal case against Bevilacqua's trusted secretary for clergy, Msgr. William Lynn.
Bevilacqua testified for 10 days over eight months in 2003 and 2004 about what he knew and what Lynn did or did not do. The closed-door sessions proved relentless and, occasionally, surprising.
On the first day, June 26, 2003, Bevilacqua seemed shocked to learn that the archdiocese's now-infamous "secret archives" contained allegations against 120 priests.
"You said there were 120 different priests?" he repeated. "This is the first time I heard that number."
Though the sex-abuse saga exploded in 2002, Bevilacqua had felt no need to delve into the secret archives. He purposefully avoided TV, books, and newspaper reports.
"I've never read the Boston Globe," he declared to Deputy District Attorney Charles Gallagher.
"Not one article at all?"
"Not even one."
