Pope Allegedly Knew About Wis. Pedophile Priest
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(March 25) – Just days after Pope Benedict XVI chastised Irish bishops for covering up clerical sexual abuse in Ireland, new documents suggest he did nothing to discipline a Wisconsin priest he knew had molested scores of deaf boys -- and may have blocked a church trial in the case.
In 1996, when then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was serving in one of the Vatican's most important positions, he received written warnings from several bishops about the Rev. Lawrence Murphy, a priest at St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis, Wis., The New York Times reported. The Times obtained the internal church documents from lawyers of five victims of Murphy, who are suing the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
"This shows a direct line from the victims through the bishops and directly to the man who is now pope," Jeff Anderson, one of the lawyers, told AOL News reporter Lisa Holewa in Milwaukee. "The only difference [from the 1950s] is now we have the documents that are open to secular eyes."
The abuse of what may have been up to 200 deaf boys, many who reported cowering in their beds weeping while Murphy, the school's powerful priest, molested others, was first reported in 2006 in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Murphy worked at the school from 1950 to 1974.
Milwaukee's then-archbishop, Rembert G. Weakland, wrote Ratzinger two letters about Murphy's behavior and got no response, the Times reported. However, thousands of cases were forwarded to Ratzinger from 1981 to 2005, when he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which decides whether priests will be defrocked.
Finally, eight months later, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican's secretary of state, told Wisconsin bishops to start a secret canonical trial that might have ended with Murphy's dismissal.
However, Bertone called off the trial after Murphy appealed to Ratzinger directly. He claimed poor health and said the abuse was no longer within the church's statute of limitations.
"I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood," Murphy wrote. "I ask your kind assistance in this matter." The Times reported that there are no responses from Ratzinger in the files.
The recently unearthed correspondence and church files come from attorneys for five men suing the Archdiocese of Milwaukee over the abuse.
As reported in the Journal Sentinel, the men reported similar experiences.
They said Murphy would either call them to his bedroom in the school, or come to them in their dorm beds late at night. He would fondle them and then leave, often going to other boys during the same visit. Sometimes he would molest them while taking their confession.
The boys were often so confused and upset that they would cover their heads with blankets, hold themselves close and cry.
"Murphy was so powerful and it was so hard," said one of the plaintiffs, who said he was molested when he was in seventh grade and said he saw more than a dozen other boys molested. "You couldn't get out. It was like a prison. I felt so confused. Here I had Father Murphy touching me. I would be like, 'God, what's right?' "
This latest black eye for the Vatican comes one day after the pope accepted the resignation of Irish Bishop John Magee for his part in covering up clerical sexual abuse in Ireland. Just days before, the pope wrote a pastoral letter to Irish Catholics, blaming clergy there for the massive scandals.
Pope Benedict has not yet commented on reports that he went easy on a priest in Germany who he knew had sexually abused children.
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Pedophiles make me sick. :sickr:
Gay should not be attached to such a sickness. It just brings us all down.
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Arthur Budzinski was a student at St. John's School for the Deaf outside Milwaukee in the 1960s when he alleges that he was molested by the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy. The late priest, who ran the school, is accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys.
MILWAUKEE (March 25) – Arthur Budzinski sits at a coffee shop, using sign language to talk about a new report that top Vatican officials knew about the priest who abused him and hundreds of other boys at a Catholic school for the deaf -- but failed to act out of fear of embarrassing the church.
"This is nothing new for him," his daughter, Gigi Budzinski, said, interpreting her father's signs. "He's known for many, many years that people at the Vatican knew this and ignored it. His innocence was stolen from him when he was just a boy. Now he's 61 years old and he's still fighting this same fight."
As reported in The New York Times on Thursday, newly released documents show that bishops in Wisconsin reported the allegations against the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy directly to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now pope, The news comes as Pope Benedict XVI faces accusations about failing to respond to other sexual abuse allegations as an archbishop in his native Germany.
Minnesota lawyer Jeff Anderson, who represents victims of church sexual abuse in Wisconsin and shared the documents, told AOL News that the correspondence shows "a direct line from the victims through the bishops and directly to the man who is now pope."
"What this clearly demonstrates is that the world's top Catholic officials, as a matter of protocol and practice, when a serial predator was reported to them by U.S. bishops, looked at it and chose to do nothing because they were afraid of the publicity and to avoid scandal," he said. "The obvious result is that more kids were abused."
According to the documents, in 1996 then-Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger, then prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, and explained that sexual abuse charges against Murphy dating to the 1950s included accusations that he solicited sexual activity from boys in the confessional.
"My concern now is not simply for necessary justice, I am even more interested in a healing response from the church to the deaf community within the archdiocese so that their anger may be defused and their trust in ecclesiastical ministers be restored," Weakland wrote.
However, according to the documents, a canonical trial that could have led to Murphy's dismissal was halted after the priest wrote to Ratzinger, saying he had repented.
"I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood," wrote Murphy, who died in 1998 at age 72. "I ask your kind assistance in this matter."
The files contain no response from Cardinal Ratzinger.
Budzinski said he heard similar claims of repentance from Murphy when he confronted the priest about the abuse after graduating from St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis, near Milwaukee.
An undated photo shows Budzinski at left with his hands folded and Murphy at far right during a church service. Budzinski said he was 12 years old when he went to Murphy for confession and instead was molested by the priest in a secluded stairway.
"He said, 'Please be quiet. Forgive me, please. I have stopped,' " Budzinski said, through his daughter. "But he kept molesting boys."
Budzinski began attending the school, near Lake Michigan in a quiet Milwaukee suburb, in 1953, when he was 5 years old. Although he cried every Sunday night when his father dropped him off at the school, clinging to his leg and begging to go home, Budzinski said he enjoyed going there and connecting with other deaf children.
The young boys particularly enjoyed exploring the sprawling building and its grounds, he said, pointing to pictures in a battered pamphlet from the 1950s. Budzinski's face lit up as he used his hands to describe the stately school grounds, wide stairways, huge parlor and hidden walkways. As an older child, he enjoyed walking to Lake Michigan during breaks from classes.
He first saw Murphy when the priest visited a class where the students used headphones to try to learn speech. Budzinski said it wasn't until he was 10 that he began "hearing whispers" from the older boys about the priest's late-night visits to their dormitories.
When Budzinski was 12, he said, he went to Murphy for confession and instead was molested by the priest in a secluded stairway between two buildings. Budzinski says he was molested by Murphy two more times, once at age 12 and again at 14.
"You're real handsome," Budzinski recalled the priest telling him. "You are a real handsome boy."
When Budzinski graduated eighth grade and began attending a high school for the deaf, he heard other boys talking openly about Murphy, compelling him to confront the priest in the encounter he described, when he saw Murphy at a high school football game. But he didn't go to civil authorities until 1974, with two boyhood friends who also said they had been molested, and by that point they were told the statute of limitations had expired.
His daughter said Budzinski was given $80,000 in 2006 from a fund established to compensate clergy abuse victims.
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee, in a statement issued Thursday in response to the Times' article, noted: "Murphy's actions were criminal and we sincerely apologize to those who have been harmed. … Most importantly, today, no priest with any substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor serves in public ministry in any way in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee."
Archdiocesan spokeswoman Julie Wolf added in an interview with AOL News: "I think it's important for people to look at these news stories of 2010 not only through the lens of 2010 but then through the lens of 1950 and '60 and '70 -- how as a society things were different and how as a church things were different. We as a church today are really setting the standard for sexual abuse prevention."
However, Budzinski said he hasn't trusted the church for decades. "My only faith," he said, "is right here in my heart."
Budzinski, who became a journeyman printer, married and had two daughters, had this advice to other victims: "You need to tell. Never give up. ... Never give up."
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Pedophiles make me sick. :sickr:
Gay should not be attached to such a sickness. It just brings us all down.
One of the major problems in my country. Many use pedophile and homosexual as synonymous, with the same meaning. I know it is pointless, but I try to write in forums that these are 2 different things. These people are just too ignorant and of course they usually are not very educated people, who express this view.
The most stupid thing is that there is a big scandal of pedophilia in my country now, but including a little GIRL and still people blame gay people. Like, it has no sense. I just have no words for that. People should read dictionaries or something and not express such strong positions in things they don't know.
Of course, situation is improving. Its probably not a coincidence that most (not all) educated people, studying, etc are more tolerant and know the difference between these two words and know when to use them.Pedophiles are very serious issue, as even adults have trouble dealing with rape. So how should a child deal with it. It is a major psychological (hope it is the correct word) trauma, which can affect a person for the rest of their lives. I think more attention should be focused on the victims and not offenders. At least, in my country, in already mentioned case, it is dealt pretty badly. Everyone are using this situation to their advantage, not caring about the affect on the victim. (mostly journalists)
So lets punish the guilty (by law of course) and try to help the victims to heal and recover and not make their life's even more complicated, stressful than it already is. -
Most countries still refuse to accept that women can be child molesters, even with countless cases already recorded. So this won't help us much either.
