Pope Benedict Faces Child Abuse Cover-up Queries

BBC ^ | 3/25/10

[marshmallow]

Questions are being raised about whether Pope Benedict was personally involved in covering up a case of child sex abuse by a Roman Catholic priest.

Documents seen by the New York Times newspaper allege that in the 1990s, long before he became Pope, he failed to respond to letters about a US case.

Fr Lawrence Murphy, of Wisconsin, was accused of abusing up to 200 deaf boys.

Defending itself, the Vatican said US civil authorities had investigated and dropped the case.

For more than 20 years before he was made Pope, Joseph Ratzinger led the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith - the Vatican office with responsibility, among other issues, for the Church's response to child abuse cases.

Allegations that the Church sought to cover up child abuse by Catholic priests in Europe have haunted the Vatican for months.

'He was so friendly'

The documents seen by the New York Times suggest that in 1996, the then Cardinal Ratzinger twice failed to respond to letters sent to him personally.

They concerned the Rev Lawrence Murphy, who worked at a Wisconsin school for deaf children from the 1950s.

Three archbishops of Wisconsin were told Fr Murphy was sexually abusing boys but those allegations were not reported to civil authorities at the time.

Alleged victims quoted by the New York Times gave accounts of the priest pulling down their trousers and touching them in his office, his car, his mother's country house, on class excursions and fund-raising trips, and in their dormitory beds at night.

"If he was a real mean guy, I would have stayed away," said Arthur Budzinski, 61, a former pupil of at St John's School for the Deaf, in .......

[Pikachu_Dad]

Yep... The libs force you to allow perverts into your organization; and then use them to destroy you.

Beware the boll weavils.

Are they giving the same treatment to the corrupt public schools and the naughty teachers?

[marshmallow]

Fox News is not the primary source for this. The Times is. Anyway, pull up an armchair, pop open a beer and enjoy yourself.

Nobody is killing the messenger, BTW. I posted the story, right?

The then Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters from Archbishop Weakland. That's it.

What more do we need to know?

[T Minus Four]

I don’t know why you think anyone is getting any enjoyment out of this whole sickening mess.

[lastchance]

I would love to know what Weakland did besides send the Vatican a letter? How old were the victims?

[Salvation]

Prayers for Pope Benedict XVI!

[Salvation]

Perhaps you do not know the entire story!

Church Renovation ("Wreckovation")

Bishop Rembert Weakland  (now retired)

Modernist militant Bishop of Milwaukee openly defies Vatican orders that his Cathedral wreckovation does not meet Church teachings.

[onedoug]

It’s difficult not to agree that allowing priests to marry would go a long way towards shifting what seems this all too pervasive perversion within the male Catholic hierarchy.

[Salvation]

You are aware that there are victims of sexual abuse in greater if not equal numbers from teachers and ministers of other denominations, aren't you?

Sexual Abuse of Children by Protestant Ministers

Report: Protestant Church Insurers Handle 260 Sex Abuse Cases a Year

Abuse by Protestant Ministers of Every Denomination

Child Sexual Molestation by Various Protestant Clergy

Baptist Predators website

"Yeshiva" of Brooklyn also Guilty of Child Abuse

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Teacher's Advocacy of Pedophilia Raises Legal Questions

Teachers and Pedophilia - In YOUR Backyard

Washington Post -- D.C. school officials reported 220 abuse allegations against teachers

Sex Abuse by Teachers Said Worse Than Catholic Church

WHEN BOYS ARE MOLESTED BY TEACHERS AND OTHERS IN POSITIONS OF AUTHORITY

[Salvation]

The most probable pedophiles in order are:

Fathers
Teachers
Coaches
Protestant ministers

Priests are way down on the list.

So if a father is a teacher of mid-high history, coaches the girl’s basketball team and is a youth minister at his church on weekends/Sundays — watch out! He would be much more prone to pedophilia that any priest.

[Antoninus]

It’s difficult not to agree that allowing priests to marry would go a long way towards shifting what seems this all too pervasive perversion within the male Catholic hierarchy.

LOL. Read the post immediately below yours for an education on this subject. If you think that homosexual sex abuse only occurs in the Catholic clergy, you are out of your cotton-pickin' mind. It only seems that way because the media will not report it when it happens anywhere else--like in public schools.

[Antoninus]

I don't think killing the messenger is going to go much further in the coming weeks my Friend.

So far, the media has created a lot of sound and fury about this garbage with nothing to show for it. What makes you think they've got something now?

The media and their butt-boy lackeys within the Church will continue to try to bring this Pope down. And they will fail. Miserably.

[KC Burke]

It’s difficult not to agree that allowing priests to marry would go a long way towards shifting what seems this all too pervasive perversion within the male Catholic hierarchy.

As is often posted in reply to a seemingly reasonable position like the above is to relate it to NY elementary school teachers who have a similar rate of child abuse and say, "if they only let school teachers marry...". It displays the illogic of making a direct logical relationship.

If we didn't have the purple mafia in clegical schooling, that would have more impact. If homosexuality wasn't promoted and encouraged in formative minds, that would have more impact. Many things would have more or equal impact.

While not a catholic, I was a Boy Scout leader and the Boy Scouts figured out how to cut the rare incident rate for this behavior by a large percentage making it an even more rare occurance -- a church can as well.

Many child abusers are married or have been married or in a traditional male/female relationship. The issue is what is acceptable behavior overall within a society and homosexual and other similar behavior is more and more tolerated as within the range of normality each decade.

[onedoug]

Granted it would be interesting to ascertain statistics on the incidence of of pedophilia overall. Though I speak from my own experience when I was young and studying Catholicism with my mom. Most of the priests I encountered seemed decent but there was one who definitely gave me the heebie-jeebies. Granted, it may have been my own youthful perception, but I think not. So now I think about the statistics and the odds that I would encounter that situation inside a church setting overall. Add to it that I spent much more time in Protestant settings and never encountered a like circumstance.

Yes, we can add to it all of the shortcomings and failures of society in general. But even in that case it seems one should expect the Church more than any other institution to adhere to its values.

Again, it’s my perception, but I have thought about this for a long time and am cognizant of the many meritable arguments to the contrary. It’s just that I no longer agree with them.

The issue is with male nature, and that is paramount in what should be addressed throughout the entire issue.

[Antoninus]

Yes, we can add to it all of the shortcomings and failures of society in general. But even in that case it seems one should expect the Church more than any other institution to adhere to its values.

You are right. Catholics should be held to a higher standard. I completely accept that.

But remember one thing--the Catholic Church has been specifically targeted by the enemy for infiltration and destruction. If we have vile creatures in our midst, many of them were put there with a purpose.

[Antoninus]

While not a catholic, I was a Boy Scout leader and the Boy Scouts figured out how to cut the rare incident rate for this behavior by a large percentage making it an even more rare occurance -- a church can as well.

You may not be aware, but the Vatican issued directives, in 1961 and again in 2005 expressly forbidding those with same-sex attraction from being ordained priests. Here's the problem--many of the bishops openly ignored these directives. Some of these bishops, like Rembert Weakland were later outed as homosexuals themselves.

[T Minus Four]

It’s the high-level cover-up that is the issue and you know it.

[Religion Moderator]

you know it

Reading the mind of another Freeper is a form of "making it personal."

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

[T Minus Four]

OK, sorry.

[Mrs. Don-o]

And all the public-schoolteachers-abusing-students cases in the news lately. It's an outrage! And it wouldn't be happening if it weren't for the dumb policy of school teachers not being allowed to marry.

Except that -- perhaps you've noticed --that in the dozen + teacher-beds-a-boy cases that have hit the publicity, every one of the perpetrators has been a married woman.

We've known this for years. Here's a Free Republic thread (link) in which Hofstra University researcher Dr. Charol Shakeshaft estimates that "the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."

Doesn't quite fit the preferred narrative, though, does it?

This in no way mitigates the objective criminal responsibility of the parties involved, married or unmarried, women or men, gay or straight. But it serves as an indication that refrences to distinctive features of Catholicism per seare dubious, to say the least.

[KC Burke]

Seminary staff and clegy as much as Bishops allowed this to happen as I read the history of it in the 20th century.

The media, forever anti-religous, loves to pick on the more conservative, large or traditional denominations. Sensitivity between denominations allows some of us to be sucked into intenicene fights when we should realize that the orthodox (small "o") amongst the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox (Capital "O") branches of Christianity and the various strains of Judism have more in common with each other than their nearest doctrinal neighbors that are on the cultrual left that use their denominatin as a country club and a "means for social change" vehicle without a proponderance of belief.

I have people from my church, who though "churched", have little faith in the Enduring Moral Order. I have friends who are worlds apart from me in denominational doctrine but whose communion with Christ I respect to the utmost. The reason is we are both orthodox believers willing to practice our faith.