In 2012, a guilty plea by priest Edward Avery and the related trial and conviction of William Lynn and mistrial on charges against James J. Brennan followed from the grand jury's investigations.
[citation needed] According to the 2005 investigation, while serving as assistant vicar for administration in 1996, Joseph R. Cistone was involved with silencing a nun who tried to alert parishioners at St. Gabriel parish about abuse by a priest.
"[4] However, Cistone refused to discuss the matter further, saying, "[I]t would not serve any purpose to revisit the grand jury report and endeavor to recall the rationale for past decisions made in specific cases.
Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) demanded that Cistone hold a public forum to explain his actions as described in the 2005 grand jury report.
"[7] A 2009 suit claims that John M. McDevitt, a religion teacher at Father Judge High School for Boys, abused Richard Green for six months in 1990 and 1991, according to a report by the New York Post.
McDevitt's association with the Philadelphia Orphans’ Court, Summerdale Boys’ Club and all male Catholic high schools provided him access to minors.
In 2018, the Pennsylvania grand jury report on sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church included the account of a male who stated that the adult McDevitt attempted to forcibly kiss him while in high school.
Later, a Grand Jury found that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's decision to do so "had the effect of diminishing the validity of the evaluations and the likelihood that a priest would be diagnosed as a pedophile or ephebophile.
[10] In 2011, an unidentified monsignor was accused of sexual abuse from his time as vicar of Christ the King Parish in Northeast Philadelphia in the late 1960s, and again while principal of a school in Warminster, Pennsylvania.
He can bring in a dozen more lawyers, but if he does what he did five years ago with the expert child-safety consultant and ignores every single recommendation, it's just going to be more empty promises and public relations."
[20] In March 2012, "Edward Avery, 69, known for his moonlighting work as a disc jockey, pleaded guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child.
... Avery was at St. Jerome's despite a credible 1992 complaint that led him to undergo psychological testing at an archdiocesan-run psychiatric hospital, according to a 2005 grand jury report.
"According to a scathing grand jury report, Lynn, as secretary of clergy for the archdiocese, concealed the crimes of accused priests and put them in positions in which they could harm more children.
He remained as pastor at Our Mother of Sorrows in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania until 1995; moved to Florida and garnered further abuse inquiries back to Philadelphia from there; and "is 69 [but i]t's not clear where he's living", said the AP report, which also detailed the testimony on the extent and nature of the priest's, and his superiors', behaviors and actions.
[43] On September 3, 2019, former Bucks County priest Francis Trauger was arrested and charged with sexually abusing two altar boys while serving at the St. Michael the Archangel Church in Tullytown between the 1993 and 2003.
[57] On September 5, 2019, accused former Philadelphia priest Robert Brennan was arrested at his home in Maryland after being indicted on four counts of lying to the FBI about molesting Sean McIlmail and faces federal charges.
Attorneys included Marci Hamilton, a legal advocate and expert on child sexual abuse; Malvern lawyer Daniel F. Monahan; and Jeffrey R. Anderson, a veteran litigator involving church sex-abuse cases, based in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
[55] On October 7, 2015, a Pennsylvania state Superior Court ruled that two men who claim they were sexually abused by Catholic priests decades ago waited too long to sue the Archdiocese of Philadelphia over the alleged assaults.
The Superior Court opinion, written by President Judge Susan Peikes Gantman, noted that Finnegan, now 54, claimed he was abused repeatedly from 1968 to 1970.
Finnegan, who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, refused the archdiocese's offers of medical and psychological assistance before filing his suit in Philadelphia County Court, Gantman noted.
Philadelphia Judge Jacqueline F. Allen dismissed both lawsuits on statute of limitations grounds after the diocese filed motions for summary judgment.
"The fact remains that they knew what was happening and who was doing it when the abuse occurred and should have instituted their (suits) within the prescribed statutes of limitations," the state judge wrote.
The defendants in the Finnegan and Gaughan suits included William Lynn, who was the secretary for clergy for the archdiocese from 1992 to 2004 and was responsible for investigating reports of sex abuse by priests.
He "offered an apology 'if I have offended' and 'for any weaknesses on my part,' but said he saw no particular connection between the timing of the Vatican accepting his resignation and turbulence" over the February grand jury report.
as he began to tell the story of Joe, a 59-year-old [76] who spoke of his abuse at the hands of Father Schmeer when in the ninth grade at Roman Catholic High School.
Farrell said Huber had been given access to Achilles and Smith but "chose to omit these perspectives from his piece" and hence missed the "significant steps" the archdiocese had taken to rectify the situation.
Specifically, the paper went on to say: "Harrisburg lawmakers need to act on proposals still being fought by the state's Catholic bishops — most vocally by Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput — that would waive civil statutes for a brief period to allow those victims to seek justice.
At the same time, SNAP also called "again" on Archbishop Chaput to proceed to laicize Lynn after his conviction; and for "eliminating Pennsylvania's archaic, arbitrary, predator-friendly statutes of limitations".
In August 2017 parochial school teacher Bernard Shero's conviction was overturned in a Post-Conviction Relief Act case because Judge Ellen Ceisler found prosecutorial misconduct in that the prosecutors did not tell the defense attorneys that Detective Joe Walsh had grave questions about Danny Gallagher's truthfulness.
On November 26, 2019, Pennsylvania Tom Wolf signed into law legislation which significantly reformed the state's child sex abuse statue.