THE tattered remains of the Pope’s reputation were further shredded today with a revelation in the New York Times that top Vatican officials – including Ratzinger himself – failed to defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys.
Yet more bad press for Ratzinger
Despite being repeatedly warned by several American bishops that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, no action was taken against the Rev Lawrence C Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974.
Details of this failure by the Church to protect vulnerable youngsters from a predatory priest are contained in church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.
The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the Church from scandal.
In 1996, Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G Weakland, Milwaukee’s archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy’s dismissal.
But Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Ratzinger protesting that he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in poor health and that the case was beyond the church’s own statute of limitations.
Near the end of his life, Father Murphy said in a letter to Ratzinger:
I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood. I ask your kind assistance in this matter.
The New York Times obtained the documents, which the church fought to keep secret, from Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan, the lawyers for five men who have brought four lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
The documents include letters between bishops and the Vatican, victims’ affidavits, the handwritten notes of an expert on sexual disorders who interviewed Father Murphy and minutes of a final meeting on the case at the Vatican.
Not only was Father Murphy never tried nor disciplined by the church’s own justice system, but he also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims.
Three successive archbishops in Wisconsin were told that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children, the documents show, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities.
Instead of being disciplined, Father Murphy was quietly moved by Archbishop William E Cousins of Milwaukee to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin in 1974, where he spent his last 24 years working freely with children in parishes, schools and, as one lawsuit charges, a juvenile detention center. He died in 1998, still a priest.
Hat tip: Keith from the US (and thanks to Sister Talitha from Landover Baptists for sending us the cartoon).
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Really, they have no shame!They go around condemning harmless, innocent gay couples, unfortunate women who need to have abortions, refuse to admit sons of gay couples in their schools, when they cover such shit!
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