BishopAccountability.org
	New York Times Highlights Vatican Inaction on Abusive Milwaukee Priest Catholic Culture March 25, 2010 http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=5828 In a front-page headline story, the New York Times has called attention to a sex-abuse case in which the Vatican failed to act promptly on a request to defrock a Wisconsin priest who was accused of molesting up to 200 boys at a school for the deaf. In an extraordinary public statement directly responding to the Times story, the Vatican pointed out that the Vatican was unaware of the accusations against Father Lawrence Murphy until more than 20 years after they arose. In his statement Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Vatican press office, also took pains to debunk the popular misconception that the 1962 Vatican document Crimen Sollicitationis and/or the Code of Canon Law required diocesan officials to maintain absolute confidentiality about abuse reports. He said: Indeed, contrary to some statements that have circulated in the press, neither 'Crimen' nor the Code of Canon Law ever prohibited the reporting of child abuse to law enforcement authorities. Milwaukee's Archbishop Rembert Weakland sought the laicization of Father Murphy in 1996-- more than 40 years after the priest was first accused of sexual abuse. The Milwaukee archdiocese had removed the accused priest from his post in 1974 and assigned him to pastoral work in another diocese, without taking formal disciplinary action or informing police of the charges. Father Murphy escaped an ecclesiastical trial by pointing out that the canonical statute of limitations had elapsed since his last recorded offense, saying that he had repented and reformed, and pointing out that his health was failing. He died shortly thereafter, still technically a priest in good standing.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.