Confession must have been a riot with this guy.

Philadelphia – from www.philly.com – Prosecutors today began dissecting the career of the Rev. Nicholas V. Cudemo — transferred among Archdiocesan high schools over more than two decades after being accused of molesting a series of teenage girls — as the trial continued to explore the church’s handling of allegations of sexual abuse by some priests.

“As a male celibate, he needs female companionship and friendship,” Archdiocesan officials reported Cudemo told them when confronted in October, 1991 about allegations by several cousins that the priest had fondled them during their teen and preteen years.

That statement and others were contained in church archives that were read to the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury hearing the case against Msgr. William J. Lynn, who as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004 was the designated investigator of complaints of sexual misconduct against priests.

Most of Cudemo’s predations against teenage girls occurred before Lynn’s tenure as secretary for clergy. Cudemo was ordained in 1963 and the first allegation against him — involving a junior at Lansdale Catholic High School — was in 1966 at his first post as assistant pastor at St. Stanislaus parish in the Montgomery County community. Now 75, Cudemo was defrocked in 2005.

Lynn, the highest-ranking church official criminally charged in the church sex-abuse scandal, is accused of conspiracy and endangering the welfare of children for enabling some deviate priests to be transferred to other parishes after being accused. Lynn has denied the charges.

Prosecutors have been permitted to introduce evidence that predates Lynn’s tenure as secretary of clergy to show that he was allegedly perpetuating a church policy of protecting the church’s reputation at the expense of the victims of sexually abusive priests.

Although the 1991 Cudemo meeting occurred before Lynn became secretary for clergy, he was then beginning to work in the office and that day was taking notes as Cudemo was being questioned.

The records read to the jury today under the direction of Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington showed that Cudemo repeatedly deflected complaints made against him by denying sexual acts and admitting that he was “imprudent” and had let himself become too close to the girls.

“I’m attracted to young girls and I counsel them,” Cudemo is quoted as saying in a 1977 meeting after he was accused of have sex with a teenage student while he was teaching at Cardinal Dougherty High School.

But by 1991, the excuses were sounding hollow. A 31-year-old woman who owned a Florida condominium with Cudemo wrote church officials that she had been in a relationship with the priest since she was 15. And then there was the group of female cousins who accused Cudemo of fonding them when they were young assuring them that “It’s OK for cousins to be this close.”

At the 1991 meeting where Cudemo was ordered to go into treatment, the priest waxed and waned — argumentative and apologetic — but was ultimately unremorseful.

He blamed the allegations on a group of enemies who are “out to get me” but also told the officials: “I’ve known lots of women and it always takes two to do these things. … They were always more than willing.”