By Stephanie Gaskell
New York Daily News
March 25, 2010
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/03/25/2010-03-25_vatican_office_led_by_future_pope_benedict_xvi_was_warned_about_american_pedophi.html
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| Pope Benedict XVI is in the midst of another Vatican scandal - this time over a pedophile priest scandal in Wisconsin. |
The growing sex scandal in the Catholic church reached the Vatican on Thursday, with new claims that Pope Benedict protected a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting up to 200 deaf boys.
Court documents show then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was alerted twice in writing by the Wisconsin archbishop in 1996 about the accusations against the Rev. Lawrence Murphy.
Murphy also wrote to Ratzinger, who headed up the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith from 1981 to 2005 before becoming Pope, and begged for leniency.
"I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood," he wrote. "I ask your kind assistance in this matter."
Ratzinger didn't respond and a secret trial was quietly canceled. Murphy, who worked at St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis from 1950 to 1975, died in 1998.
The documents are part of a lawsuit against the Milwaukee Archdiocese brought by five men who say they were abused by Murphy.
On Thursday, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi defended the Pope.
"During the mid-1970s, some of Father Murphy's victims reported his abuse to civil authorities," he said in a statement. "The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith was not informed of the matter until some 20 years later."
He said Murphy wasn't punished because he was "elderly and in very poor health."
"He was living in seclusion and no allegations of abuse had been reported in over 20 years," the statement said.
Pope Benedict has become increasingly entangled in the abuse scandal, which has reached Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Two German archdioceses said while he was an archbishop there in 1980, Ratzinger gave church housing to a priest suspected of child abuse.
And on Saturday, the Pope apologized for sex abuse carried out by priests in Ireland.
"You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated," he wrote in a letter to the victims.
With News Wire Services
Contact: sgaskell@nydailynews.com
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