Priest

So many parents and alumni of St. Denis Catholic School in Havertown supported merging with friendly CYO rival Annunciation B.V.M., the marriage should have gone off without a hitch. Instead, parishioners hoping to embrace the past and future in a name were told the regional school would honor the late Cardinal John Foley. The decision was, in their pastor's words, "nonnegotiable. " Children voted on a mascot, only to have their choices (Cardinals, Falcons, or Phoenixes)

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced yesterday that a 39-year-old priest has been removed from his duties at two parishes amid an allegation that, while attending seminary, he sexually abused a child. The news follows Friday's announcement that the Rev. Geraldo Pinero had stepped down as pastor of Incarnation of Our Lord Parish in Olney after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents produced a search warrant at the parish rectory. Yesterday, the Archdiocese said the Rev. William G. Ayres, pastor of St. Michael parish in North Philadelphia, had recently been accused of abusing a minor in the mid-1990s while Ayres was attending St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook.

T WO MEN followed starkly different paths to the witness stand. The 49-year-old was raised in the suburbs, graduated from medical school, got married and had five children. The 23-year-old from Northeast Philadelphia was kicked out of two high schools, attempted suicide and got hooked on heroin and prescription drugs. In tense and emotional testimony to a Common Pleas Court jury on Wednesday, the two alleged victims described a bond: Each said that he had been sexually abused by his parish priest, Edward Avery.

The two men followed starkly different paths to the witness stand. The 49-year-old was raised in the outer suburbs, graduated from medical school, got married, and had five children. The 23-year-old from Northeast Philadelphia was kicked out of two high schools, attempted suicide, and spent much of the last decade hooked on heroin and prescription drugs. But in tense and emotional testimony to a Common Pleas Court jury Wednesday, both former altar boys described a bond: Each said he was sexually abused by his parish priest, Edward Avery.

THE ARCHDIOCESE of Philadelphia allowed a priest to remain in parish ministry in 1989 after psychiatrists diagnosed him as a pedophile, described him as "a very sick man" and strongly recommended that he never be allowed to work around young people, according to internal church records. One of the doctors who evaluated the priest, the Rev. Peter J. Dunne, "stated quite bluntly that we are sitting on a powder keg," a church official later noted in a memo. Dunne's records emerged Tuesday in the trial of Monsignor William J. Lynn, the former secretary of clergy accused of enabling child-sex abuse by failing to remove priests suspected of sexual misconduct.

KANSAS CITY, MO. - The charge is only a misdemeanor, but if prosecutors can win a conviction against Kansas City Roman Catholic Bishop Robert Finn, they could be opening up a new front in the national priest-abuse crisis. Finn is accused of violating Missouri's mandatory reporter law by failing to tell state officials about hundreds of images of suspected child pornography found on the computer of a priest in his diocese. Experts say a criminal conviction against Finn, the highest-ranking church official charged with shielding an abusive priest, could embolden prosecutors elsewhere to more aggressively pursue members of the church hierarchy who try to protect offending clergy.

PARISHIONERS of Stella Maris Parish in South Philly expressed sadness on Sunday after hearing the news at Mass over the weekend — Msgr. George Mazzotta, who served there from 2008 to 2010, did indeed sexually abuse a minor more than 42 years ago. "I feel bad for the victim," said one woman, who wanted to be identified only by her first initial and last name, R. Young. "I feel bad because he [Mazzotta] was a sick man. He should have been helped a long time ago. " Young, 69, said she heard the news at the 5 p.m. Mass on Saturday.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia plans to suspend a priest nearly two decades after church leaders learned he had sex with a girl, 17, according to a source familiar with the matter. Msgr. Richard T. Powers, 76, who had served in parishes across the region and was most recently assigned to Epiphany of Our Lord in South Philadelphia, will be placed on administrative leave pending a review, said the source, who asked not to be identified discussing a personnel issue. Powers' suspension comes after his name emerged on a newly disclosed 1994 internal church memo that listed 35 area priests suspected or accused of abusing children.

The Rev. James J. Brennan told church investigators four years ago that he let a 14-year-old boy view online pornography and share his bed in 1996 but denied that he touched the teen or exposed himself, according to documents revealed Monday at his landmark clergy sex-abuse trial. Brennan told his interrogators at a 2008 canonical proceeding that his decision to let the boy view the images and sleep next to him that night was "borderline" inappropriate. Still, he said he was blindsided when the young man came forward after a decade and accused him of sexual assault.

THREE GENERATIONS of admirers showed up last month for the Bread and Roses Community Fund's tribute to the Rev. David Gracie. Gracie couldn't make it. He was terminally ill. Funeral Mass is today at the Church of Advocate in North Philadelphia. During the turbulent '70s and '80s, Gracie's name was in the headlines frequently - in the forefront of the struggles for peace and civil rights, against poverty and police brutality. The Episcopal priest took his battles to the streets of Philadelphia, often espousing unpopular causes and challenging the establishment.

One priest said Msgr. William J. Lynn treated victims of clergy sex abuse with compassion. Another testified that Lynn pressed accused priests to enter treatment, and urged his bosses to order hospitalization for any who resisted. A third noted that even regional vicars had more power than the secretary for clergy. The priests took the stand Tuesday as the first witnesses called by the defense in the landmark clergy sex-abuse trial against Lynn, the former clergy secretary for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

One priest said Msgr. William J. Lynn treated victims of clergy sex abuse with compassion. Another testified that Lynn pressed accused priests to enter treatment, and urged his bosses to order hospitalization for any who resisted. A third noted that even regional vicars had more power than the secretary for clergy. The priests took the stand Tuesday as the first witnesses called by the defense in the landmark clergy sex-abuse trial against Lynn, the former clergy secretary for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

I know that I am not the only person who is angered at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's type of sentencing of Reverends Mazzotta and Campbell, because I am sure that they did not have only one encounter of child molestation — it was only one "reported" encounter for each priest, who should be excommunicated from the Church. To my knowledge, no priest/molester has been excommunicated from the Church, as the Church has taken steps to excommunicate abortionists, murderers or anyone else who intentionally deviates from Church teachings.

VATICAN CITY - The Legion of Christ religious order, already discredited for concealing the crimes of its pedophile founder, suffered another blow to its credibility Tuesday after its superior admitted he knew in 2005 that his most prominent priest had fathered a child, yet allowed him to keep teaching and preaching about morality. The admission by the Rev. Alvaro Corcuera is likely to enrage members of the Legion and its lay branch who have endured years of apologies, hypocrisy and explanations for the crimes of the Catholic order's founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, who sexually abused his seminarians and fathered three children with two women.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia on Sunday announced that it had found two more priests unsuitable for ministry over claims that each had sexually abused a minor. The archdiocese said it had substantiated a claim against Msgr. George J. Mazzotta, who most recently served at Stella Maris Parish in Philadelphia and St. Madeline Parish in Ridley Park. Msgr. Hugh P. Campbell, who is retired but most recently served at St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish in West Chester, told the archdiocese himself in December that he had sexually abused a minor, according to a brief news release from the archdiocese.

PARISHIONERS of Stella Maris Parish in South Philly expressed sadness on Sunday after hearing the news at Mass over the weekend — Msgr. George Mazzotta, who served there from 2008 to 2010, did indeed sexually abuse a minor more than 42 years ago. "I feel bad for the victim," said one woman, who wanted to be identified only by her first initial and last name, R. Young. "I feel bad because he [Mazzotta] was a sick man. He should have been helped a long time ago. " Young, 69, said she heard the news at the 5 p.m. Mass on Saturday.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia on Sunday announced that it had found two more priests unsuitable for ministry following claims that they had sexually abused a minor. The Archdiocese said it had substantiated the claim against Msgr. George J. Mazzotta, who most recently served at Stella Maris Parish in Philadelphia and Saint Madeline Parish in Ridley Park. Msgr. Hugh P. Campbell, who was retired but most recently served at Saint Maximilian Kolbe Parish in West Chester, told the Archdiocese himself in December that he had sexually abused a minor, according to a brief release from the Archdiocese.

After calling nearly 50 witnesses and presenting close to 1,900 documents over eight weeks, prosecutors rested their case Thursday in the landmark trial involving child sexabuse by Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests. The team of district attorneys ended by letting jurors handle what they contend is the closest thing to a smoking gun in the case: a tattered gray folder that had been hidden away in a locked safe at archdiocesan offices for more than a decade. Inside were handwritten and typed records, including a list that Msgr.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia's file on the Rev. James J. Brennan had dozens of documents bluntly detailing what the archbishop, nuns, pastors, and even Brennan himself thought of his strengths, flaws, and potential. Missing from those records were words like sex abuse, molestation, and accusation, a detective acknowledged Wednesday. "Those words are not used, no," James Dougherty, an investigator for the District Attorney's Office, told jurors at the landmark trial of Brennan and Msgr.

A former FBI agent hired by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to investigate clergy sex abuse concluded that a Bucks County man was telling the truth when he said the Rev. James J. Brennan tried to rape him when he was 14. Testifying Monday at Brennan's trial, the investigator, Jack Rossiter, said the priest consistently denied any "intentional" sexual contact with the teen when the boy stayed at his apartment in 1996. But in three interviews with Rossiter a decade later, Brennan gave conflicting statements about why he slept in the same bed with the boy, how long their visit lasted, and his ties to another young man who lived with him when Brennan was stationed at Cardinal O'Hara High School.