As a Catholic, it pains me to know the Church of Rome didn’t do more to protect victims of sexual abuse at the hands of its priests, and the fact that the Vatican is still defending its decision not to defrock a Wisconsin priest accused of sexually assaulting as many as 200 deaf boys from the 1950s to the 1970s is simply appalling.
Murphy is believed to have molested as many as 200 deaf boys in his 25 years at St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis, luring many of his victims through the confessional.
Police and Milwaukee bishops have known of the allegations at least since the mid-1970s, and the Journal Sentinel has reported on them for years. However, criminal charges were never filed, and the archdiocese did not attempt to defrock Murphy until 1996. Murphy died in 1998 at the age of 72.
According to documents obtained as part of a civil lawsuit against the Milwaukee Archdiocese, two Wisconsin bishops including then-Archbishop Rembert Weakland urged the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI – to allow them to conduct a church trial of Murphy, who had moved to the Superior Diocese and was continuing in ministry.
Ratzinger’s deputy at the Congregation ruled that the charges were too old and that Murphy, then ailing and elderly, should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese.
That deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state, ordered the church trial halted after Murphy wrote Ratzinger saying he was ill and infirm, and “simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood.”
Victims of father Murphy and their supporters gathered Thursday morning outside the Milwaukee Archdiocese offices,and among the victims at the gathering was Arthur Budzinski, who was molested by father Murphy beginning at the age of 12 when Budzinski was a student at St. John’s. Speaking in sign language interpreted by his daughter, Budzinski said, “somebody should be punished,” adding, “The pope knew about this. He’s the one who handled these. He should be accountable.”
While the Archdiocese of Milwaukee has issued a statement apologizing for father Murphy’s actions, it’s much too little, much too late. The church should have done more to protect its most vulnerable members, and in failing to do so, it showed it’s more interested in protecting itself than its members.
I wonder how many other ugly secrets Ratzinger was privy to as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Maybe that’s why he was elected Pope — because he had dirt on every other Cardinal in the College.
Good point.
Seems then-Cardinal Ratzinger was the Catholic Church’s “dirty little secret” keeper.
You know…aside from the horrible shame, humiliation, and fear/mistrust these children endure…many children who are molested/abused by “religious” men lose their faith in God. The fact no one reached out to these children to HELP them is unforgivable and unacceptable. All the adults…the cops, the DA, the religious leaders, the nuns, teachers…who knew and did nothing are despicable and evil.
The institutional church worked to protect itself, in total disregard for the community of parishes and parishioners who provide the REAL, TRUE and DIRECT foundation of (hu)man relationships to God.
The waves of accumulating scandal hitting the roman catholic church will look a mere trifle compared to the ‘perfect storm’ that is shortly coming. For these growing, worldwide sexual scandals and endemic institutional corruption, having destroyed virtually any remaining ‘moral’ authority or presumption to understand human nature, are just setting the stage for the ‘churches’ worst nightmare: the questioning of it’s very origins! And that has already begun on the web. Not by any atheist ravings, but with first wholly new interpretation for 2000 years of the Gospel/moral teachings of Christ. Redefining all primary elements including Faith, the Word, Law, Baptism, the Trinity and the Resurrection. This is not reformation but revolution. We may very well come to ‘remember’ the church as two thousands years of hubris, theological self deception, retailing a counterfeit copy of revealed truth. Check it at: http://www.energon.org.uk