Monsignor William Lynn will be spending the next three to six years in prison for his role in the covering up of child sexual abuse by a priest. Lynn, of the Philadelphia Archdiocese, was convicted last month on one count of child endangerment and acquitted on two others. The sentence that was imposed was just below the maximum.

While Lynn did not molest children, Judge M. Teresa Sarmina informed Lynn that he enabled “monsters in clerical garb … to destroy the souls of children, to whom you turned a hard heart.”

The culture of secrecy surrounding child molesting priests has been mirrored in the culture that surrounded the football program at Penn State where Jerry Sandusky was able to molest children for more than a decade.

Lynn’s lawyers tried to argue that the child endangerment law that was in effect when former priest Edward Avery molested the altar boy in question did not apply to supervisors and plan to appeal the conviction. Avery pled guilty to the sexual assault.