Posted on 03/25/2010 7:00:24 AM PDT by marshmallow
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican did not discipline a Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing up to 200 deaf boys in the United States from the 1950s to the 1970s as Church laws do not require automatic punishment, its spokesman said on Thursday.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that the Vatican did not defrock Rev. Lawrence Murphy in the late 1990s despite receiving clear warnings from his bishops that his case was serious and could embarrass the Church.
The report came amid mounting allegations of sexual abuse by priests in Europe and pressure on bishops, mostly in Ireland, to resign for failing to report cases to civil authorities.
Among 25 internal Church documents the Times posted on its website was a 1996 letter about Murphy to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then the Vatican's top doctrinal official and now Pope Benedict, showing he was informed of his case.
Ratzinger's deputy first advised a secret disciplinary trial but later reversed that in 1998 after Murphy appealed directly to Ratzinger for clemency. The priest died later that year.
Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a statement that Murphy had broken the law but a civil probe into complaints against him in the mid-1970s had been dropped and the Vatican only learned of the allegations 20 years later.
"The canonical (Church law) question presented to the Congregation was unrelated to any potential civil or criminal proceedings against Father Murphy," Lombardi said.
"In such cases, the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties."
EXTENSIVE PAPER TRAIL
The 1996 letter to Ratzinger from the then Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland was not answered, the Times said.
After eight months, Weakland wrote a second letter to Ratzinger's deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), .....................
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
“Oh, yes: It’s not the truth that matters, it’s the seriousness of the charge. Your comment reminds me of Anita Hill.”
It is the refusal to take a charge seriously - or even a criminal conviction seriously - that is the hangup. The Assemblies of God did a much better job handling Swaggart.
No kidding. I took the opportunity, some months ago, to take a look at my state's "registered sex offender database", with particular interest in what might be dwelling in my local stomping grounds.
Yuck.
What a sordid collection of rapists, child-rapists, pornographers, and other malefactors!
I found it particularly appalling because: 1) Most of them had been sentenced to less than 5 years.
2) They served less than their sentence.
3) They ALL had committed their crimes in another state.
Thanks a hell of a lot, jackasses! Breed perverts elsewhere, then use rural Virginia for a garbage dump. And the leftards wonder why some of us want CCW.
Other denominations make miscreants Bishops. Wake up.
Comprehend the friggin' article.
"Systemic"? ".....sitting Pope appears to be part of the problem"?
OK, let's take this particular case and get down to specifics. Enough of the rhetoric, which I'm not sure that even you believe.
1) Are the Pope's supposed sins ones of a) ommission or b) commission?
2) If "a)" kindly explain what he neglected to do, bearing in mind the facts as known and the main players. If "b)" what actions were sinful?
Actually the abuse was brought to the attention of police and church authorities in 1974. It happened appx 20-30 years before that.
I’m no Catholic,, but it couldn’t be *any more obvious* that the leftards started hunting him the very minute he was picked for pope. They started carefully sifting through his life, for anything bad that happened somewhere he lived. They did it because they hate what he stands for,,, so it appears the pop was correct in his assessment.
To put it more bluntly, you and the others who are using this controversy to score points against the Catholic Church are "useful idiots."
Please point out the criminal convictions in this case
Simple, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict kept this secret. He protected pedophiles.
Try getting your facts straight. Under canon law investigations into certain grave matters are confidential. Nothing prohibits the reporting of any incident to police.
INVESTIGATIONS ARE NOT TRIALS. Learn how investigations into criminal matters are handled by civil authorities before you go spouting off about the evil of confidential proceedings.
In canon law there is also a presumption of innocence granted to the accused. We do this same horrible thing for persons accused under criminal law. Oh my God the U.S. Constitution is designed to cover up the crimes of perverts. We better scrap that stuff right now!!!
If I understood the post correctly, what Campion is referring to is the agenda of the secular Left to damage ALL religion, beginning with Catholicism. This is not about sexual abuse-it’s about the secular agenda.
Those who are buying into these articles are puppets of the Left.
The specific case mentioned in this article took place 20 years late - allegations in 1974, review of the case in 1996. 22 is not 40, but 40 is not too long for a serious and thorough investigation of rape.
The future Pope COULD have written, “There is a cancer in the Priesthood, and it is the duty of every Priest to root it out. Every case will be investigated. If there is sufficient evidence a crime may have been committed, the case will be turned over to the civil authorities, and a dual investigation will be pursued. For the Glory of God, it may be necessary to err, if error occurs, on the side of defrocking Priests without the same level of evidence required for a criminal civil prosecution. Anyone who fails to cooperate with an investigation does so under threat of excommunication.”
Instead, he wrote to keep everything secret, and any leaking of information would be grounds for excommunication.
The Pope screwed up. Big time.
From “A Man for All Seasons”:
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ‘round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
I will ask you one more time. DO NOT MESSAGE ME AGAIN. Understand?
Thus, what non criminal recourse did the Church have? Order a canonical trial for one about to die or perhaps urinate on his grave? How many kids would have been saved if this action had occurred? Answer 0 and win the prize.
You need to digest and understand the facts fully before making uniformed judgments.
Do you have a point, Miss Hill?
No I did not say the abuse was o.k. I am saying that it is very hard to glean all the facts of an case when the incident involved happened 40 years ago. And that a response when the evidence is fresh may differ when it is brought to somebody’s attention 40 years later.
If you go to the link to Bishop Accountability it lays out the facts as known. This site is dedicated to exposing the failure of Bishops to act in protecting children. So I hope you would find it objective.
The priest had been removed from public ministry by the Diocese around 1974(I don’t know if it was only in ministry involving children or not).
While the priest was outside of the diocese in 1994 it was found he was still working in public ministry. Now although he was not in Mil. he still was under the authority of that Bishop, who was Weakland at the time. The Bishop could have recalled Murphy and placed him under discipline and removed him from his duties and kept him in Mil. But instead the Bishop, who along with the previous bishops had already been criticized for the handling of Murphy decided to play CYA and ask the Vatican to defrock the priest.
If protecting children was the goal. And I agree it must be. But defrocking the priest would not have done this as much as recalling him from outside the diocese to be subject to canonical discipline and retired from public ministerial life.
If things had been handled correctly the guy would have been brought to the attention of the Vatican in 1974. But at that time sex abuse cases were not excusively handled by CDF but were handled by the dioceses.
From the BBC article mentioned in one of the first posts:
“The Rev Peter Hullermann had been accused of abusing boys in the 1970s when the now Pope approved his 1980 transfer to Munich to receive psychological treatment for paedophilia.
Hullermann was convicted in 1986 of abusing a youth, but stayed within the Church, serving as a village priest until 2008.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8587082.stm
The Pope’s idea of investigation includes:
“The letter states that the church’s jurisdiction ‘begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age’ and lasts for 10 years.
It orders that ‘preliminary investigations’ into any claims of abuse should be sent to Ratzinger’s office, which has the option of referring them back to private tribunals in which the ‘functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests’.
‘Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,’ Ratzinger’s letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/apr/24/children.childprotection
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