Abuse inquiry: 5 Pennsylvania priests unsuitable

Archbishop of Philadelphia Charles Chaput speaks during a news conference Friday, May 4, 2012, in Philadelphia. Chaput announced that five priests were deemed unsuitable for ministry because of substantiated allegations of sexual abuse or other inappropriate conduct. AP Photo/Matt Rourke

PHILADELPHIA — Five priests were deemed unsuitable for ministry because of substantiated allegations of sexual abuse or other inappropriate conduct, Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic archbishop said Friday.

Three other priests would return to the ministry and another died during the investigation, Charles Chaput said. He said 17 other cases were investigated, but the findings were not being immediately announced.

“The process of reviewing these cases was designed to ensure that the decisions announced today reflect our commitment to protect children, assist victims, restore the integrity of the priesthood and provide evidence to the broader community that they can have confidence in these outcomes,” the archbishop said.

He also offered his “heartfelt apology” to all victims of clergy abuse, too.

The announcements come during the criminal trial of Monsigner William J. Lynn, a former top aide at the archdiocese. He is charged with child endangerment for his handling of abuse complaints from 1992 to 2004, mostly under the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

The February 2011 grand jury report that led to Lynn’s case also alleged that dozens of accused priests were still active in Philadelphia, despite a zero-tolerance policy among U.S. bishops. The accusations ranged from sexual abuse to inappropriate boundary issues.

A 2005 grand jury report had blasted the church for ignoring or dismissing sexual-abuse complaints made against 63 priests in the archdiocese over many decades.

The 2011 report said the archdiocese was continuing to downplay complaints or focus on minor discrepancies to find them not credible.

The archdiocese responded by suspending the priests and hiring a former child sex-crimes prosecutor, Gina Maisto Smith, to re-examine complaints involving active priests.

A year ago, the criticism came from within when the head of the archdiocese’s lay panel on priest sex-abuse blasted then-Cardinal Justin Rigali’s response to the pedophilia crisis, saying he and his bishops “failed miserably at being open and transparent.”