Altar Boy

They come into the Adoption Center playroom in a tumble of joy. They're wrestling, punching and laughing. These six brothers and sisters live in four separate foster homes, and this is a day of celebration. It's their once-a-month gathering. They're together! And that's what they want to be, with the miracle of a family that will read their story and see the love they can bring. They jump on a big table and grin at one another. Hope swings her legs and bats her eyelashes as she swishes a paper fan at Eddie.

An embattled black Roman Catholic priest who has defied the church hierarchy and formed his own congregation in Washington defended his breakaway movement here last night, saying, "What we are asking for is parity, equality, justice. " "All we're saying to the Roman Catholic Church is that we are tired of being the stepchildren," said the Rev. George A. Stallings Jr. "We're tired of being like Lazarus and asking for the crumbs that fall from the table - we want to sit down and eat the whole meal.

Frank H. Plageman Jr., 84, a retired employee of Bell of Pennsylvania and an altar boy at the historic St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church on Willing's Alley, died Saturday at Kennedy Memorial Hospitals/Stratford Division after a long illness. Mr. Plageman was a retired troubleshooter and technical switchman for Bell of Pennsylvania, and was an altar boy for about 17 years at St. Joseph's Church, where he assisted during early Mass, according to his son, Joseph. "He'd help them open up in the morning and bring flowers for the courtyard," Plageman said of his father, who was an avid gardener.

EDWARD AVERY might be gone from the defense table at the landmark clergy-sex-abuse trial involving Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests, but he remains a pivotal figure in the case. On Monday, prosecutors and defense lawyers clashed over what jurors could and should be told about Avery, a defrocked priest who was removed as a defendant last month after his last-minute plea to charges that he sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy. Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina suggested that jurors could even hear from Avery himself.

THE FIVE DEFENDANTS in the Philadelphia Catholic church sex scandal will be tried together, a judge ruled yesterday. During the case's final pretrial hearing, Common Pleas Judge Lillian Ransom denied the defendants' requests for separate trials and most of their motions to dismiss conspiracy charges. Ransom also denied a motion by the attorney for Monsignor William Lynn that would have allowed the state Superior Court to determine if the endangering-the-welfare-of-children statute applied to Lynn.

The five men charged earlier this year in the priest-abuse scandal that rocked the Archdiocese of Philadelphia stood with their attorneys yesterday to reject plea offers that would have sent each to prison. Instead of accepting the plea agreements from Assistant District Attorney Evangelia Manos, attorneys for the five men told Common Pleas Judge Lillian Ransom that they would fight the charges and file motions in the coming weeks for separate trials and to quash the conspiracy charges.

Citing patient confidentiality laws, the treatment center where the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sent priests accused of molestation says it is legally barred from turning over records to prosecutors in the looming child sex abuse trial of four current and former priests. In a motion filed in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, a lawyer for the St. John Vianney Center in Downingtown asked a judge to quash Philadelphia prosecutors' subpoena for one patient's files. The motion says the Pennsylvania Mental Health Procedures Act prohibits it from releasing the records.

Facing imminent arrest for the alleged sexual assault of a 10-year-old pupil in his English class, parochial school teacher Bernard Shero penned a sad letter apologizing to his parents for the "ridicule and shame," took an overdose of sleeping pills and waited for death in his Bristol apartment. Death did not arrive on Feb. 10, 2011 but Philadelphia police Det. Andrew Snyder did and the detective told a Common Pleas Court jury today how lucky timing let him arrest Shero instead of follow him to the morgue.

Citing patient confidentiality laws, the treatment center where the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sent priests accused of molestation says it is legally barred from turning over records to prosecutors in the looming child-sex-abuse trial of four current and former priests. In a motion filed in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, a lawyer for the St. John Vianney Center in Downingtown asked a judge to quash Philadelphia prosecutors' subpoena for one patient's files. The motion says the Pennsylvania Mental Health Procedures Act prohibits it from releasing the records.

IN A SHOCKING turn of events, a former priest pleaded guilty to two charges Thursday instead of facing trial in the high-profile clergy-sex-abuse case that is set to begin Monday. Defrocked priest Edward Avery, 69, pleaded guilty to a count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse involving a 10-year-old altar boy. He also pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to endanger the welfare of children. Avery was sentenced to 2 1/2 to 5 years in state prison under a plea deal with prosecutors and was told to surrender on April 2 to begin his sentence.