APP - Vatican axed trial for priest accused by deaf boys

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Once more, the Catholic Church defends, protects and hides the abuser, and by doing so tells the victims they don't care at all about them.

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer Nicole Winfield, Associated Press Writer – 17 mins ago
VATICAN CITY – The Vatican on Thursday strongly defended its decision not to defrock an American priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin and denounced what it called a campaign to smear Pope Benedict XVI and his aides.

Church and Vatican documents showed that in the mid-1990s, two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now the pope — to let them hold a church trial against the Rev. Lawrence Murphy. The bishops admitted the trial was coming years after the alleged abuse, but argued that the deaf community in Milwaukee was demanding justice from the church.

An American protester in Rome on Thursday called the Murphy case an "incontrovertible case of pedophilia."

Despite the extensive and grave allegations against Murphy, Ratzinger's deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that the alleged molestation had occurred too long ago and that Murphy — then ailing and elderly — should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese.

The official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone — now the Vatican's secretary of state — ordered the church trial halted after Murphy wrote Ratzinger a letter saying he was ill, infirm, and "simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood."

The New York Times broke the story Thursday, adding fuel to a swirling scandal about the way the Vatican in general, and Benedict in particular, have handled reports of priests raping children over the years.

On Thursday, a group of Americans who say they were sexually abused by clerics staged a press conference outside St. Peter's Square in Rome to denounce Benedict's handling of the case and gave reporters church and Vatican documents on the case.

Afterward, Italian police detained four Americans for 2 1/2 hours because they didn't have a permit for the news conference and suggested they get a lawyer in case a judge decided to press charges, the Americans said.

"We've spent more time in the police station than Father Murphy did in his life," Peter Isely, the Milwaukee-based director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said after his release.

Speaking at the earlier press conference, Isely called the Murphy case the most "incontrovertible case of pedophilia you could get."

"The goal of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, was to keep this secret," he said, flanked by photos of others who say they were abused and a poster of Ratzinger. "We need to know why he (the pope) did not let us know about him (Murphy) and why he didn't let the police know about him and why he did not condemn him and why he did not take his collar away from him."

The Vatican issued a strong defense in its handling of the Murphy case. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said there was no cover-up and denounced what it said was a "clear and despicable intention" to strike at Benedict "at any cost."

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement noting that the Murphy case had only reached the Vatican in 1996 — some 20 years after the diocese first learned of the allegations. He also said Murphy died two years later — in 1998 — and that there was nothing in the church's handling of the matter that precluded any civil action from being taken against him.

In fact, police did investigate the allegations at the time and never proceeded with a case, Lombardi noted. He said in the statement that a lack of more recent allegations was a factor in the decision not to defrock Murphy and noted that "the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties."

Murphy worked at the former St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis from 1950 to 1975. His alleged victims were not limited to the deaf boys' school. Donald Marshall, 45, of West Allis, Wisconsin, said he was abused by Murphy when he was a teenager at the Lincoln Hills School, a juvenile detention center in Irma in northern Wisconsin.

"I haven't stepped in a church for some 20 years. I lost all faith in the church," he told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday. "These predators are preying on God's children. How can they even stand up at the pulpit and preach the word of God?"

Church and Vatican documents obtained by two lawyers who have filed lawsuits alleging the Archdiocese of Milwaukee didn't take sufficient action against Murphy show that as many as 200 deaf students had accused him of molesting them, including in the confessional, while he ran the school.

While the documents — letters between diocese and Rome, notes taken during meetings, and summaries of meetings — are remarkable in the church officials' repeated desire to keep the case secret, they do suggest an increasingly determined effort by bishops, albeit 20 years later, to heed the despair of the deaf community in bringing a canonical trial against Murphy.

Ratzinger's deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, though, shut the process down after Murphy wrote Ratzinger a letter saying he had repented, was old and ailing, and that the case's statute of limitations had run out.

"I have just recently suffered another stroke which has left me in a weakened state," he wrote Ratzinger. "I have repented of any of my past transgressions, and have been living peaceably in northern Wisconsin for 24 years. 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," he wrote the man who would be pope within a decade.

According to the documentation, in July 1996, then-Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland sent a letter seeking advice on how to proceed with Murphy to Ratzinger, who led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 until 2005, when he was elected pope.

Weakland explained that he was writing because he had only recently learned that the reason Murphy stopped working in 1975 was because he had been accused of soliciting sex in the confessional, one of the gravest sins in canon law.

Weakland received no response from Ratzinger, and in October 1996 convened a church tribunal to hear the case.

In March 1997, Weakland wrote to the Vatican's Apostolic Signatura, essentially the Vatican high court, asking its advice because he feared the statute of limitations on Murphy's alleged crimes might have expired.

Just a few weeks later, Bertone told the Wisconsin bishops to begin secret disciplinary proceedings against Murphy according to 1962 norms concerning soliciting sex in the confessional, according to the documents.

But a year later, Bertone reversed himself, advising the diocese to stop the process after Murphy wrote to Ratzinger. Bertone suggested that Murphy should instead be subject to "pastoral measures destined to obtain the reparation of scandal and the restoration of justice."

The archbishop then handling the case, Bishop Raphael Fliss, objected, saying in a letter to Bertone that "I have come to the conclusion that scandal cannot be sufficiently repaired, nor justice sufficiently restored, without a judicial trial against Fr. Murphy."

Fliss and Weakland then met with Bertone in Rome in May 1988. Weakland informed Bertone that Murphy had no sense of remorse and didn't seem to realize the gravity of what he had done, according to a Vatican summary of the meeting.

But Bertone insisted that there weren't "sufficient elements to institute a canonical process" against Murphy because so much time had already passed, according to the summary.

Weakland, likening Murphy to a "difficult" child, then reminded Bertone that three psychologists had determined he was a "typical" pedophile, in that he felt himself a victim.

But Bertone suggested Murphy take a spiritual retreat to determine if he is truly sorry, or otherwise face possible defrocking.

"Before the meeting ended, Monsignor Weakland reaffirmed the difficulty he will have to make the deaf community understand the lightness of these provisions," the summary noted.

The documents contain no response from Ratzinger.

The documents emerged even as the Vatican deals with an ever-widening church abuse scandal sweeping several European countries. Benedict last week issued an unprecedented letter to Ireland addressing the 16 years of church cover-up scandals there. But he has yet to say anything about his handling of a case in Germany known to have developed when, as cardinal, he oversaw the Munich Archdiocese from 1977 to 1982.

After Murphy was removed from the school in 1974, he went to northern Wisconsin, where he spent the rest of his life working in parishes, schools and, according to one lawsuit, a juvenile detention center.

Previously released court documents show Weakland oversaw a 1993 evaluation of Murphy that concluded the priest likely assaulted up to 200 students at the school.

Weakland resigned as archbishop in 2002 after admitting the archdiocese secretly paid $450,000 to a man who accused him of sexual abuse.
 
These worthless bastards have no concern for the damage done, they just want to protect and enable the child molesters.
 
Once more, the Catholic Church defends, protects and hides the abuser, and by doing so tells the victims they don't care at all about them.

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer Nicole Winfield, Associated Press Writer – 17 mins ago
VATICAN CITY – The Vatican on Thursday strongly defended its decision not to defrock an American priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin and denounced what it called a campaign to smear Pope Benedict XVI and his aides.

Church and Vatican documents showed that in the mid-1990s, two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now the pope — to let them hold a church trial against the Rev. Lawrence Murphy. The bishops admitted the trial was coming years after the alleged abuse, but argued that the deaf community in Milwaukee was demanding justice from the church.

An American protester in Rome on Thursday called the Murphy case an "incontrovertible case of pedophilia."

Despite the extensive and grave allegations against Murphy, Ratzinger's deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that the alleged molestation had occurred too long ago and that Murphy — then ailing and elderly — should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese.

The official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone — now the Vatican's secretary of state — ordered the church trial halted after Murphy wrote Ratzinger a letter saying he was ill, infirm, and "simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood."

The New York Times broke the story Thursday, adding fuel to a swirling scandal about the way the Vatican in general, and Benedict in particular, have handled reports of priests raping children over the years.

On Thursday, a group of Americans who say they were sexually abused by clerics staged a press conference outside St. Peter's Square in Rome to denounce Benedict's handling of the case and gave reporters church and Vatican documents on the case.

Afterward, Italian police detained four Americans for 2 1/2 hours because they didn't have a permit for the news conference and suggested they get a lawyer in case a judge decided to press charges, the Americans said.

"We've spent more time in the police station than Father Murphy did in his life," Peter Isely, the Milwaukee-based director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said after his release.

Speaking at the earlier press conference, Isely called the Murphy case the most "incontrovertible case of pedophilia you could get."

"The goal of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, was to keep this secret," he said, flanked by photos of others who say they were abused and a poster of Ratzinger. "We need to know why he (the pope) did not let us know about him (Murphy) and why he didn't let the police know about him and why he did not condemn him and why he did not take his collar away from him."

The Vatican issued a strong defense in its handling of the Murphy case. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said there was no cover-up and denounced what it said was a "clear and despicable intention" to strike at Benedict "at any cost."

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement noting that the Murphy case had only reached the Vatican in 1996 — some 20 years after the diocese first learned of the allegations. He also said Murphy died two years later — in 1998 — and that there was nothing in the church's handling of the matter that precluded any civil action from being taken against him.

In fact, police did investigate the allegations at the time and never proceeded with a case, Lombardi noted. He said in the statement that a lack of more recent allegations was a factor in the decision not to defrock Murphy and noted that "the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties."

Murphy worked at the former St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis from 1950 to 1975. His alleged victims were not limited to the deaf boys' school. Donald Marshall, 45, of West Allis, Wisconsin, said he was abused by Murphy when he was a teenager at the Lincoln Hills School, a juvenile detention center in Irma in northern Wisconsin.

"I haven't stepped in a church for some 20 years. I lost all faith in the church," he told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday. "These predators are preying on God's children. How can they even stand up at the pulpit and preach the word of God?"

Church and Vatican documents obtained by two lawyers who have filed lawsuits alleging the Archdiocese of Milwaukee didn't take sufficient action against Murphy show that as many as 200 deaf students had accused him of molesting them, including in the confessional, while he ran the school.

While the documents — letters between diocese and Rome, notes taken during meetings, and summaries of meetings — are remarkable in the church officials' repeated desire to keep the case secret, they do suggest an increasingly determined effort by bishops, albeit 20 years later, to heed the despair of the deaf community in bringing a canonical trial against Murphy.

Ratzinger's deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, though, shut the process down after Murphy wrote Ratzinger a letter saying he had repented, was old and ailing, and that the case's statute of limitations had run out.

"I have just recently suffered another stroke which has left me in a weakened state," he wrote Ratzinger. "I have repented of any of my past transgressions, and have been living peaceably in northern Wisconsin for 24 years. 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," he wrote the man who would be pope within a decade.

According to the documentation, in July 1996, then-Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland sent a letter seeking advice on how to proceed with Murphy to Ratzinger, who led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 until 2005, when he was elected pope.

Weakland explained that he was writing because he had only recently learned that the reason Murphy stopped working in 1975 was because he had been accused of soliciting sex in the confessional, one of the gravest sins in canon law.

Weakland received no response from Ratzinger, and in October 1996 convened a church tribunal to hear the case.

In March 1997, Weakland wrote to the Vatican's Apostolic Signatura, essentially the Vatican high court, asking its advice because he feared the statute of limitations on Murphy's alleged crimes might have expired.

Just a few weeks later, Bertone told the Wisconsin bishops to begin secret disciplinary proceedings against Murphy according to 1962 norms concerning soliciting sex in the confessional, according to the documents.

But a year later, Bertone reversed himself, advising the diocese to stop the process after Murphy wrote to Ratzinger. Bertone suggested that Murphy should instead be subject to "pastoral measures destined to obtain the reparation of scandal and the restoration of justice."

The archbishop then handling the case, Bishop Raphael Fliss, objected, saying in a letter to Bertone that "I have come to the conclusion that scandal cannot be sufficiently repaired, nor justice sufficiently restored, without a judicial trial against Fr. Murphy."

Fliss and Weakland then met with Bertone in Rome in May 1988. Weakland informed Bertone that Murphy had no sense of remorse and didn't seem to realize the gravity of what he had done, according to a Vatican summary of the meeting.

But Bertone insisted that there weren't "sufficient elements to institute a canonical process" against Murphy because so much time had already passed, according to the summary.

Weakland, likening Murphy to a "difficult" child, then reminded Bertone that three psychologists had determined he was a "typical" pedophile, in that he felt himself a victim.

But Bertone suggested Murphy take a spiritual retreat to determine if he is truly sorry, or otherwise face possible defrocking.

"Before the meeting ended, Monsignor Weakland reaffirmed the difficulty he will have to make the deaf community understand the lightness of these provisions," the summary noted.

The documents contain no response from Ratzinger.

The documents emerged even as the Vatican deals with an ever-widening church abuse scandal sweeping several European countries. Benedict last week issued an unprecedented letter to Ireland addressing the 16 years of church cover-up scandals there. But he has yet to say anything about his handling of a case in Germany known to have developed when, as cardinal, he oversaw the Munich Archdiocese from 1977 to 1982.

After Murphy was removed from the school in 1974, he went to northern Wisconsin, where he spent the rest of his life working in parishes, schools and, according to one lawsuit, a juvenile detention center.

Previously released court documents show Weakland oversaw a 1993 evaluation of Murphy that concluded the priest likely assaulted up to 200 students at the school.

Weakland resigned as archbishop in 2002 after admitting the archdiocese secretly paid $450,000 to a man who accused him of sexual abuse.

Wrong, wrong, and more wrong. Chief reason so many have left the flock.
 
I heard that the Vatican was officially lobbying the Pope to have Mark 10:13-14 officially change to read: "Let the little children come unto Me and Suffer, and forbid them not: for such is the kingdom of God."

"And they brought young children to Him, that He should touch them: and His disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, He was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God"
(Mark 10:13-14).
 
Still waiting for SM to come along and tell us all how the church is still innocent and didn't know and didn't do anything to protect these pedophiles of the cloth
 
Still waiting for SM to come along and tell us all how the church is still innocent and didn't know and didn't do anything to protect these pedophiles of the cloth

Surely the church authorities in Wisconsin need to take most of the blame? It's called the Badger State so maybe they ought to have badgered the Vatican more, sorry I couldn't resist.
 
Still waiting for SM to come along and tell us all how the church is still innocent and didn't know and didn't do anything to protect these pedophiles of the cloth

No, SM won't address it at all. The best you can hope for is for him to tell us that more kids are molested in public schools.
 
The catholic church needs to clean house. They need to take action with extreme prejudice against the priests that abuse kids. Until they do so, they are nothing more than a running joke.
Not just a joke. It represents a whole different mythological creature to support and protect those who victimize children sexually. People who supposedly speak in the name of God are now complicit in the sexual victimization of children, if that is a representation of God then I want no part of this God's "love"...
 
Not just a joke. It represents a whole different mythological creature to support and protect those who victimize children sexually. People who supposedly speak in the name of God are now complicit in the sexual victimization of children, if that is a representation of God then I want no part of this God's "love"...
They are, at their organizational level, a criminal organization. There is no Cardinal, and probably damn few Arch-Bishops that knew nothing about the sexual abuse of children. The current pope and his predecessor were complicit in the cover up of decades of child sexual abuse. In this country, any Cardinal or Arch-Bishop that knew or should have known of the sexual abuse of children should be arrested as an accomplice after the fact. Failing to turn in someone that is KNOWN to sexually abuse children is a crime for the rest of us and should be for the clergy as well.
 
They are, at their organizational level, a criminal organization. There is no Cardinal, and probably damn few Arch-Bishops that knew nothing about the sexual abuse of children. The current pope and his predecessor were complicit in the cover up of decades of child sexual abuse. In this country, any Cardinal or Arch-Bishop that knew or should have known of the sexual abuse of children should be arrested as an accomplice after the fact. Failing to turn in someone that is KNOWN to sexually abuse children is a crime for the rest of us and should be for the clergy as well.

You'd know about the law better than anybody else here. Am I correct in assuming that, unlike with diplomats, there is no exemption under the law for clergy or other church officials from criminal apprehension and prosecution? Of course, obtaining the necessary evidence that would stand up in a court of law may be difficult given the closed, secretive nature of the organization.
 
You'd know about the law better than anybody else here. Am I correct in assuming that, unlike with diplomats, there is no exemption under the law for clergy or other church officials from criminal apprehension and prosecution? Of course, obtaining the necessary evidence that would stand up in a court of law may be difficult given the closed, secretive nature of the organization.
Wouldn't it be "Person in Power" kind of stuff, like a teacher? They should get it worse than even a normal perv should...
 
Wouldn't it be "Person in Power" kind of stuff, like a teacher? They should get it worse than even a normal perv should...

Absolutely. It's even worse because it's not only power but the priest or teacher is in a position of trust.
 
You'd know about the law better than anybody else here. Am I correct in assuming that, unlike with diplomats, there is no exemption under the law for clergy or other church officials from criminal apprehension and prosecution? Of course, obtaining the necessary evidence that would stand up in a court of law may be difficult given the closed, secretive nature of the organization.
The law is no different for clergy than for the rest of us, except as it applies to confession. The clergy is still exempted from having to report pedophiles to the authorities if the molestation was learned of during confession or religious consultation. This is different from Teachers, social workers, physicians, foster parents, police officers, firefighters and other professionals. That is where the catholic church has made claims of innocense, even when more than one priest knew of the molestation. The Catholic church has knowingly kept pedophiles as parish priests by transferring them to new parishes. For years, priests were sent to the Jemez Springs New Mexico to The Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete. After spending several hard months in the beautiful forest retreat they were sent to other parishes to molest again, even though in the 50's the church knew that pedophile priests were not curable. The retreat in Jemez Springs was known as Camp Ped even by priests that worked there.

Here is an article about it.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news/2002_08_15_Russell_CampPed.htm
 
What the fuck is a brain disorder? Alzheimers?

It's not organic in nature, and I am sure one day we will know how to treat it. The problem was psychologists would say "I can treat that!" with just about everything, when in actuality they could treat practically nothing. Even the things they can treat today, they usually don't have any clue why their methods work. I think Psychology is eventually going to be replaced by neurology.
 
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Anyway, the pope should resign. If he wants his church to have any integrity left at all, he needs to get his ass out of the chair, after firing all the priests and bishops and cardinals and everyone who was involved.
 
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