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  Vatican Slams Pope News Story

News 24
March 25, 2010

http://www.news24.com/Content/World/News/1073/bd2245ff15b14b99915f5b986f5f9536/25-03-2010-10-02/Vatican_slams_Pope_news_story_

Vatican City - The Vatican newspaper on Thursday denounced what it called an "ignoble attempt" to smear the pope after a New York Times article accused the pontiff of inaction over a decades-old paedophile priest scandal.

The report said the Vatican body headed at the time by Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was alerted twice by the archbishop of Wisconsin to the accusations against Reverend Lawrence Murphy but did not respond.

In an editorial, L'Osservatore Romano denounced what it called "an ignoble attempt to strike at Benedict XVI and his closest aides at all costs".

The Vatican mouthpiece also complained: "The prevailing trend in the media is to disregard the facts" to make it appear that the Roman Catholic Church is solely responsible for the sexual abuse of children.

The editorial, headlined "No Cover-Up," touted the pope's "transparency, firmness and severity" in response to cases of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and said: "There was no cover-up in the case of Father Murphy."

The editorial confirms that Murphy, (who) was accused of abusing hearing-impaired children systematically between 1950 and 1974, wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger in 1998 asking him to halt Church legal proceedings against him because of his ill health.

Ratzinger's deputy Tarcisio Bertone - now the Vatican number two - responded to the letter by asking the Milwaukee archbishop to "obtain reparation of the scandal and the re-establishment of justice", Osservatore Romano said.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith chaired by Ratzinger suggested "restricting" Murphy's public functions and "requiring (him to) accept full responsibility for the gravity of his acts", the Vatican told The New York Times earlier.

 
 

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