Altar Boy

Speaking quietly but firmly, a 24-year-old man testified for more than two hours Tuesday about enduring a series of childhood sexual assaults by two Catholic priests and a teacher, all of whom worked at a church and middle school less than a mile from his Northeast Philadelphia home. The molestation began in the late 1990s when the man was a 10-year-old altar boy at St. Jerome's, a Catholic school near Pennypack Park, and left him overwhelmed by fear, guilt, and shame, he testified in Common Pleas Court.

THE CRIMINAL TRIAL of a priest and a former Catholic schoolteacher accused of sexually assaulting an altar boy began Monday with the prosecutor calling the defendants "predators" who subjected the boy to "the most vile acts. " Conversely, defense attorneys painted the now-adult accuser as a drug-addicted liar angling for a payout. As their attorneys spoke of them, defendants Rev. Charles Engelhardt, 66, and Bernard Shero, 49, sat stone-faced and spoke only when they stood to plead not guilty.

The trial of a priest and a former teacher charged with sexually assaulting a 10-year-old altar boy at a Northeast Philadelphia parish opened Monday with prosecutors portraying the men as predators who turned a happy-go-lucky honors student into a despondent teenager who was expelled from school, attempted suicide, and turned to drugs. Defense attorneys questioned the credibility of the accuser, saying he had told many different versions of the abuse since reporting it in 2009. They described him as a "damaged" man whose personality shift was the result of drug addiction.

Six more jurors were picked Tuesday for the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court trial of a priest and a former parochial-school teacher charged with sexually assaulting a 10-year-old altar boy at a Northeast parish in the late 1990s. The six men selected on the second day brought the total to 10. Three women and a man were selected Monday. Prosecution and defense lawyers and Judge Ellen Ceisler will resume the selection process Wednesday in the hope of getting a jury of 12 and several alternatives to hear the trial of the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, 66, and Bernard Shero, 49. The pair are accused of serially molesting a fifth grader at St. Jerome's parish and school in 1998 and 1999.

THE WAY JIMMY MURRAY tells the story - and there are few who can tell one quite so wonderfully - the Eagles are playing the Washington Redskins in an exhibition game at Franklin Field in 1969. Astroturf has just been installed there and has caused the temperature on the playing surface to spike to 110 degrees, which sparks the ire of Redskins coach Vince Lombardi. Murray is in his first year as an assistant in the public-relations department and is standing with his back to Lombardi.

    Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said Monday that he had reinstated a Philadelphia priest whose case city prosecutors cited as proof that the archdiocese failed to properly investigate clergy sex abuse or misconduct. The Rev. Joseph DiGregorio had been accused of molesting a teenage girl in the late 1960s. His case was a focal point of the scathing 2011 grand jury report about the handling of abuse cases by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and he was among the first of 26 priests placed on leave as church officials reexamined allegations against them.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said Monday that he had reinstated a Philadelphia priest whose case city prosecutors cited as proof that the archdiocese failed to properly investigate clergy sex abuse or misconduct. The Rev. Joseph DiGregorio had been accused of molesting a teenage girl in the late 1960s. His case was a focal point of the scathing 2011 grand jury report about the handling of abuse cases by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and he was among the first of 26 priests placed on leave as church officials reexamined allegations against them.

A Philadelphia judge reinstated felony sex-abuse charges on Tuesday against the Rev. Andrew McCormick, the 56-year-old priest charged with assaulting a 10-year-old boy in 1997 when he was a priest at the St. John Cantius Church in the city's Bridesburg section. In August, a Municipal Court judge stunned prosecutors by dismissing the most serious charges against McCormick at a preliminary hearing. The District Attorney's office appealed and Common Pleas Court Judge Paula Patrick reinstated felony counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault and sexual assault.

A PHILADELPHIA judge Tuesday reinstated three felony charges against a Catholic priest who is accused of forcing oral sex on a 10-year-old altar boy in 1997. Father Andrew McCormick sat stoically at the defense table as Common Pleas Judge Paula Patrick held him for trial after a brief hearing on involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault and statutory sexual assault. Those charges were dismissed by Municipal Judge Karen Y. Simmons following an August preliminary hearing, during which the now-24-year-old alleged victim testified that McCormick, 56, straddled him and put his penis on the victim's lips and on his teeth.