Priest faces trial for murder of a nun

TOLEDO, Ohio -- There are no little murders. But Gerald Robinson is about to go on trial in Toledo for one that is unusually large, judging by the interest.

He is a Roman Catholic priest. The victim, Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, was a nun, and the slaying occurred more than 20 years ago, in the chapel of a hospital where they worked.

The crime is anchored to Easter Sunday -- the most sacred, defining day in Christendom. It occurred on Holy Saturday 1980, the day before Easter and what would have been the nun's 72nd birthday.

Robinson's murder trial begins Monday, the day after Easter 2006, when a Lucas County Common Pleas judge begins empaneling a jury under the glare of national -- and quite possibly international -- media attention.

And why wouldn't the media descend?

There are intimations of a ritual killing, satanic cults, organized sexual abuse and an institutional cover-up.

Someone strangled and stabbed Pahl at least 30 times -- the wounds defining an inverted cross. Some of her clothes were pulled off, suggesting a sexual assault.

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The evidence -- and the allegations about rituals -- surfaced only a few years ago, when one woman pressed complaints about her own sexual abuse onto a diocese that many think did not want to hear, believe or act on them.

She identified Robinson as one of her abusers, when she was a child, and her claims ran to satanic rituals that involved at least one other Toledo-area priest.

Note that word "ritual," because it is a refrain in this case, sounded by many voices.

Another Toledo woman and her husband filed suit last year against the Toledo diocese, alleging the same kind of abuse and satanic rites.

Catherine Hoolahan is a lawyer representing about two dozen people, half with lawsuits against the diocese and the rest pressing their claims through a mediation process.

Hoolahan had doubts about the satanic and ritual abuse until three people with no connection were saying roughly the same things. Two were her clients, and both linked Robinson to ritualized abuse.

The Rev. Jeffrey Grob is associate vicar for canonical services with the Chicago Archdiocese. He has been called as an expert witness in Robinson's trial and is expected to testify about the significance of ritual in the case.

Grob, contacted by telephone, would not disclose his knowledge of the case, except to say that "some kind of ritual took place." He said that in general, the possibility of satanic ritual is not far-fetched, even where priests are involved.

"A priest is just as susceptible as anyone else," Grob said. "In some ways more susceptible." There is the allure of power, and "if anyone believes in God, there is a firm presumption they also believe in the demonic."