Pope implicated: Wisconsin priest/molester cover-up

[pepsified thinker]

Then-Cardinal Ratzinger seems to have intervened/may have intervened to stop Church's trial of Weakland.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/24/pope-implicated-in-coveru_n_512483.html



As a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI and other Vatican officials did not punish or even hold a trial within the Catholic church for a Wisconsin priest who may have molested as many as 200 deaf boys, according to The New York Times.

The Times reports that despite warnings from "several" bishops to then-Cardinal Ratzinger about Father Lawrence Murphy, a priest at the St. John's School For The Deaf in St. Francis, WI, the Vatican chose not to act and ultimately allowed Murphy to go unpunished before his death in 1998. The Times reports:

In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee's archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican's secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy's dismissal.

But Cardinal Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger protesting that he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in poor health and that the case was beyond the church's own statute of limitations.


"I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood," Father Murphy wrote near the end of his life to Cardinal Ratzinger. "I ask your kind assistance in this matter." The files contain no response from Cardinal Ratzinger.

The Times acquired the correspondence and church files from the lawyers for five men who are suing the Archdiocese of Milwaukee over the abuse. A 2006 story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailed Murphy's violations:

The men's stories are similar. Murphy would call them to his bedroom in the school, or visit them in their dorm beds late at night, masturbate them and leave. Sometimes he would go on to other boys. Often he would say nothing. Sometimes when the boys saw him molesting other boys in the dorm room, they would cover their heads with their blankets, hug themselves tightly and weep. At times, he would take their confession in a second floor walk-in closet in the boy's dorm and molest them.

"Murphy was so powerful and it was so hard," said Geier who 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?' "


Geier said the boys received no sex education and had no idea what was happening to them. Some, he said, believed it must be all right because it was being done by a priest.

On Wednesday, the Pope accepted the resignation of Bishop John Magee, an Irish bishop, for his failure to report child-molesting priests to police. Last week, the Pope 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 an abuse case in Germany.

In that case, Ratzinger approved the 1980 transfer of Rev. Peter Hullermann to a psychological treatment center to receive treatment for pedophilia. Ratziner, then a cardinal, was the archbishop of Munich and did not report Hullermann's alleged abuse of boys to German police.

Since January, more than 300 former Catholic school students and others have stepped forward with abuse claims and the church has seen it's poll numbers fall drastically.

According to Stern magazine, Only 17 percent of Germans polled said that they still trust the Catholic church, compared to 29 percent in late January, just before the first abuse cases there were made public.

[Simulist]

Geier said the boys received no sex education and had no idea what was happening to them. Some, he said, believed it must be all right because it was being done by a priest.

Maybe that's why so many hyper-religious types are so against sex education: if children actually had sex education, they might then be educated to know that what has been done to some of them is worse than inappropriate, and that it is in fact a crime!

[Bruce Dazzling]

Who, this guy?

[Jeff]

Wisconsin, paedophilia and protected priests reminds me of the murder of Father Alfred Kunz.

Later, there would even be allegations that his murder could somehow be linked to evil in the most unthinkable of places: the vast Catholic hierarchy that Kunz was tied to as a diocesan priest. Some even blame the Vatican in Rome.

...

Still, could someone within the church really have killed Kunz -- or ordered him killed?

“Absolutely, as unbelievable as that might sound to some people,” Kelly says. “Let’s put it this way, it may eventually come out that Father Kunz was killed by some jealous farmer or some sick, twisted Satanist, or maybe some mentally ill drifter, for all anybody knows. But, if so, why haven’t they caught anybody after three years of such incredible, incredible scrutiny?

“Meanwhile, there are an awful lot of people in the church for whom life would have been a lot easier if Father Kunz were not around.”

...

First, the calf mutilation. According to police reports, it happened between 10 p.m. March 2 and 4 a.m. March 3 at a farm less than 15 minutes away from St. Michael – again, the exact time frame of Kunz’s murder the next day. The caged animal’s throat was slit, but, unlike Kunz, its genitals were sliced off. The farmer told police it was probably the work of a Wiccan cult rumored to operate in the area.

According to Don Jenkins, Kunz’s fellow parishioners later described a man “who looked like the very essence of evil” sneering at Kunz from a back pew during Mass shortly before he died. No one has been arrested in the calf case, either. No cult has ever been confirmed.

Another item: A week before the murder, a woman who was certain her middle-aged son was demonically possessed was referred to Kunz for an exorcism by Bishop Richard Williamson at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Minnesota. The woman and her son had not yet arrived as of the night before Kunz died.

Still another: At the time of his death, canon-lawyer Kunz, who served for years on the Madison Diocese’s Marriage Tribunal, was reportedly investigating charges of homosexuality and sexual abuse within the Catholic Diocese of Springfield, Ill. That diocese’s bishop resigned less than two years after Kunz’s murder, and a civil lawsuit by an alleged victim was thrown out because it was filed too late. That virtually assured that details of the case would never be made public.

The Springfield Diocese did not respond to telephone inquiries from Las Vegas Weekly. Unconfirmed reports also abound that Kunz’s investigations of priests in his own diocese had won him fierce enemies.

[Byrne]

Name of journalist reporting on Pope/Vatican abuse cover-up scandal ?

ROGER BOYES

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 075618.ece

[chiggerbit]

Interesting article, Byrne. This caught my eye:

After their stint in Tübingen together, Hans Küng and Joseph Ratzinger went separate ways: Professor Ratzinger, upset at the radical questioning of doctrine during the 1968 student disturbances, moved to the more conservative Regensburg;

Makes me wonder if this attitude may be behind the constant talking point used about the sexual revolution being the cause of the offending priests' sexual abuse of minors.

[chiggerbit]

From the article that Jeff quoted:

Another item: A week before the murder, a woman who was certain her middle-aged son was demonically possessed was referred to Kunz for an exorcism by Bishop Richard Williamson at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Minnesota.

I don't know about the seminary, but there's a St. Thomas Academy in Minnesota that's a college-preparatory, military day school, which I find rather interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Thomas_Academy
Saint Thomas Academy (abbr. St. Thomas Academy or STA), originally known as Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary, and formerly known as Saint Thomas Military Academy is the only all male, Roman Catholic, college-preparatory, military high school in Minnesota. It is located in Mendota Heights near Saint Paul. The Academy has a middle school, grades 7 and 8, and a high school, grades 9-12. The high school students are required to participate in Army JROTC.......

[tazmic]

The BBC's Vatican correspondent this morning said they weren't doing a very good job of covering their asses (the vatican, and no, he didn't say it that way) and concluded "They need a better spin doctor".

Knowing smile. End of interview!

[Jeff]

And in Germany...

Transfer cleared by pope, priest molested again
Cleric returned to pastoral work days after beginning psychiatric treatment

By Nicholas Kulish and Katrin Bennhold
updated 4:01 a.m. PT, Fri., March. 26, 2010

MUNICH, Germany - The future Pope Benedict XVI was kept more closely apprised of a sexual abuse case in Germany than previous church statements have suggested, raising fresh questions about his handling of a scandal unfolding under his direct supervision before he rose to the top of the church’s hierarchy.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope and archbishop in Munich at the time, was copied on a memo that informed him that a priest, whom he had approved sending to therapy in 1980 to overcome pedophilia, would be returned to pastoral work within days of beginning psychiatric treatment. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish.

An initial statement on the matter issued earlier this month by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising placed full responsibility for the decision to allow the priest to resume his duties on Cardinal Ratzinger’s deputy, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber.

But the memo, whose existence was confirmed by two church officials, shows that the future pope not only led a meeting on Jan. 15, 1980, approving the transfer of the priest, but was also kept informed about the priest’s reassignment.

What part he played in the decision making, and how much interest he showed in the case of the troubled priest, who had molested multiple boys in his previous job, remains unclear. But the personnel chief who handled the matter from the beginning, the Rev. Friedrich Fahr, “always remained personally, exceptionally connected” to Cardinal Ratzinger, the church said.

...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36048041/ns ... york_times

[chiggerbit]

The BBC's Vatican correspondent this morning said they weren't doing a very good job of covering their asses

Maybe trying too hard to cover their assets.

[Simulist]

But the personnel chief who handled the matter from the beginning, the Rev. Friedrich Fahr, “always remained personally, exceptionally connected” to Cardinal Ratzinger, the church said.

I'll just bet he did.

[Jeff]

Sinead O'Connor: 'There should be a full criminal investigation of the pope'

March 24, 2010|By Henry Chu, LA Times

...

Do you feel the pope's letter was enough?

It's a study in the fine art of lying and actually betraying your own people. . . . He starts by saying that he's writing with great concern for the people of Ireland. If he was that concerned, why has it taken him 23 years to write a letter, and why did he or the last pope never get on an airplane and come to meet the victims in any of these countries and apologize?

The letter sells the Irish [church] hierarchy downriver by stating again and again that the Irish hierarchy has somehow acted independently of the Vatican. . . . The documents are there to prove that that's a lie. . . .

If you were the boss of a company and some of the employees of your company were known to sexually abuse children, you would fire them instantly. You would also go instantly to meet the people who had been abused and profusely apologize and offer your help in any way whatsoever to deal with this. . . . That has never happened.

As a cardinal, the pope wrote an order in 2001 demanding that abuse cases be dealt with in secret. But doesn't the directive also mention cooperating with civil authorities?

That document stated that all matters of abuse were to be sent to him in Rome, where he would decide whether they would be dealt with by Rome or locally by the bishops. They were to be dealt with exclusively by the church, and they were subject to pontifical secret, which means you can be excommunicated if you breach the secret. . . .

[It's true that] it's the first time ever that any document coming from the Vatican actually does say to the clergy that they should cooperate with civil authorities. . . . What I object to here is, the first time they said that was 2001. They knew back in 1987 at least that this was an issue. . . . They knew so much that they took out an insurance policy.

So what should the pope do?

There should be a full criminal investigation of the Catholic hierarchy of any country in which this has been an issue. There should be a full criminal investigation of the Vatican.

There should be a full criminal investigation of the pope. The pope should stand down for the fact that he did not act in a Christian fashion to protect children, and for the fact that his organization acted to preserve their business interests decade after decade rather than be concerned about the interests of children, and for showing so much disrespect for Christ, God, the victims, the rest of us, their own clergy. . . .

The Vatican and the pope need to get on their knees and confess the full truth in the same language they make us use in Mass. . . . They need to get on their knees, open everything up, be transparent, tell the truth, ask the people for forgiveness and prayers.

That confession is their only hope of survival into the 21st century. It's a rickety bridge, but it is a bridge. And personally, I would be willing to bring them across that little bridge into the 21st century and help them. . . .

If they don't do that, they will not survive. . . . I hope they do survive, because there's a lot that's really beautiful about Catholicism. Even though there are those of us who are fighting it like you would fight an abusive parent, you love the parent still and you want it to be healed.

What about the abuse victims?

He [the pope] says his concern is "to bring healing to the victims." But he's denying them the one thing which might actually bring them healing, which is a full confession from the Vatican. . . .

You're talking about some very broken people. . . . Life is very difficult for them. They can't hold down jobs, can't hold down relationships. . . . Life is difficult. Therapy costs a lot of money. These people don't make much money; hardly any of them are actually fit to work. They need the Vatican to cough up some of its billions [to] pay for these people to be able to live their lives.

Should Irish bishops resign, as a few have offered?

Resignation gets them off the hook. They should be criminally prosecuted. . . . If you or I covered up crimes like that, we'd be slap-bang in jail in five minutes, and rightly so. There's a double standard. . . .

What should the Irish people do?

It's the good-hearted, sweet Catholic people who go to Mass still despite all of this -- they are the people who have the power in their hands to get the Vatican on its knees and confess. . . . How these people can do that is by refusing to go to Mass, boycott them until they actually come to their knees and confess. . . .

The way we are at the moment, we're in a very dysfunctional relationship with an organization that's actually abusing us. And we can't see what's being done to us. We have the mentality of a battered wife who thinks it's her fault. If we had a friend in a similar relationship, we would beg him or her to walk away.

Yet you still consider yourself a Catholic?

I'm a Catholic, and I love God. That's why I object to what these people are doing to the religion that I was born into.

I'm passionately in love and always have been with what I call the Holy Spirit, which I believe the Catholic Church have held hostage and still do hold hostage. I think God needs to be rescued from them. They are not representing Christian values and Christian attitudes. If they were truly Christian, they would've confessed ages ago, and we wouldn't be having to batter the door down and try to get blood from a stone.


http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/24 ... -2010mar25

[Simulist]

What should the Irish people do?

It's the good-hearted, sweet Catholic people who go to Mass still despite all of this -- they are the people who have the power in their hands to get the Vatican on its knees and confess. . . . How these people can do that is by refusing to go to Mass, boycott them until they actually come to their knees and confess. . . .

And that is the gospel truth.

Good people should stop supporting the official Church in any way or form — unless and until it finally comes to justice.

Those who continue to support it — financially or otherwise — become complicit in its crimes.

[StarmanSkye]

The chucrch heirarchy are mimicing the corrupt politicans, financial elites, bankers, intelligence chiefs and corporate execs that run the rigged-game system, justifying their lies, frauds, thefts and abuses as somehow always 'serving the greater good', because their position, what they stand for and represent is so much more important and useful than the lives their crimes and excesses have ruined or damaged; I'm for full criminal prosecution of the church leadership, they ignored secular laws which required their cooperation with local police and prosecutors where the abuses were committed. Instead, they quietly covered it up, shielding abusive priests to protect the church's reputation and property, failing to insure abusive priests could never hurt anyone again. They failed to act in good faith, to meet with those who were injured, to sincerely apologize and ask for forgiveness, to do whatever they could to make amends and correct a horrible wrong.

They have TOTALLY failed their ministry and betrayed their parishoners, the very people they were sworn to serve and protect -- especially letting CHILDREN be exploited. Everything about their failure is revolting, we should have NO tolerance for those who thought by doing God's work they were above or beyond the law and common, decent humanity. They may be sorry, but they can't act like their disregard and failure to act over many years can simply be forgiven, all is well -- bad actions and the lack of acting righteous HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

[chiggerbit]

You're talking about some very broken people. . . . Life is very difficult for them. They can't hold down jobs, can't hold down relationships. . . . Life is difficult. Therapy costs a lot of money

And yet the Church was able to send the offending priests to therapy right off the bat. Have any of the victims been offered therapy that quickly without the threat of a report to authorities or of a lawsuit? Cripes, what if the therapy offered were to be as contaminated as the Vatican's response to the abuse? Which then raises the question of the quality of the therapy that the offending priests received.

It's the good-hearted, sweet Catholic people who go to Mass still despite all of this -- they are the people who have the power in their hands to get the Vatican on its knees and confess. . . . How these people can do that is by refusing to go to Mass, boycott them until they actually come to their knees and confess. . . .

I'm have mixed feelings about this. The Catholic Church does do many very good works that would surely suffer if there were a boycott. On the other hand, the Vatican seems to be more interested in property than good works. There must be some other way around this conundrum.