Start of Landmark Philly Priest Abuse Case Delayed The start of a landmark priest abuse case involving a high-ranking official in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was delayed Monday while a judge weighed a defense request for a new jury after the abrupt guilty plea last week of a co-defendant. Attorneys for Monsignor William Lynn and the Rev. James Brennan planned to attack the credibility of the priests' troubled adult accusers, but that strategy took a hit last week when defrocked priest Edward Avery entered a last-minute guilty plea, confirming one accuser's account of a brutal 1999 sexual assault inside a church sacristy. The trial for Lynn and Brennan was scheduled to begin Monday morning after weeks of jury selection and pretrial wrangling. Both men were in court for the start of the trial, but the judge and jury were not. All three priests were to be tried together before Avery pleaded guilty Thursday to charges related to an assault on a then-10-year-old altar boy. Lynn, 61, handled priest assignments for the archdiocese as secretary for the clergy from 1992 to 2004. He is the first U.S. church official ever charged with endangering children. Prosecutors say he failed to act to try to remove Avery and Brennan from ministry despite prior child sex complaints. Avery agreed to serve 2 1/2 to five years in prison for involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to endanger a child's welfare. He has argued that he prepared a list of 37 accused priests in 1994 and sent it up the chain to Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua - only to have Bevilacqua have it shredded. The trial will be closely followed by Catholics across the country, including some who say their lives were destroyed. Philadelphia prosecutors blasted Bevilacqua, Lynn and other church officials for hiding scores of complaints that streamed into the archdiocese over several decades. Prosecutors detailed their findings in a 2005 grand jury report but said they couldn't charge anyone because the statute of limitations had expired. Avery's accuser said he was passed around by two priests and his Catholic schoolteacher at St. Jerome's Parish. When they were both naked, the priest had the boy sit on his lap and kissed his neck and back, while saying to him that God loved him," the report alleges, adding that the kissing was followed by oral sex and penetration. Lynn could get up to 28 years in prison if convicted of two counts each of conspiracy and child endangerment. Defense lawyers plan to argue that the accusers are out for money or hope to explain away their troubled lives. Both accusers have criminal records and a history of drug addiction.