BishopAccountability.org
	Heartbreak for Catholics Cape Cod Times April 8, 2010 http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100408/OPINION/4080330/-1/NEWSMAP Through the long agony of the clergy abuse scandal, Roman Catholics have known that some bishops and cardinals in the church in America allowed priests who were known pedophiles to continue to prey on children. The cover-up of crimes committed by a small minority of priests reached the office of Cardinal Bernard Law and other high-ranking bishops in dioceses across the United States. It has now been alleged, however, that the policy of protecting the institution and its clergy, instead of victims of child molestation, reached the highest levels of the Vatican, which has responded as it often has — by issuing unsupported denials, deflecting blame and accusing the media of waging an attack on the Catholic Church. The clergy abuse scandal has migrated from the U.S. to Canada, Australia, Brazil, Ireland, Italy and Germany. And, as usual, the church has been slow to respond to the abuse of thousands of children in cases that have involved about 3,000 priests worldwide. Let's be clear: 3,000 is less than 1 percent of the 400,000 Catholic priests in the world. Most priests are holy, hard-working and committed men, passionate about their ministry. That's why it is all the more important that their leaders, including the pope, clearly demonstrate — from official documents to personal records — that they were not part of any cover up. After all, lawyers representing some of the 200 alleged victims of a priest at a school for the deaf in Milwaukee released documents showing that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, had been personally informed of the allegations and declined to defrock the Rev. Lawrence Murphy, despite the urging of U.S. bishops familiar with the matter. Murphy was transferred to other duties in northern Wisconsin, where he also had access to children. Further, another report found that Ratzinger was notified in a memo of the transfer in 1980 of a diocesan priest accused of molestation while Ratzinger was archbishop of Munich and Freising in Germany. The new allegations are in direct conflict to the promises Pope Benedict gave to Catholics in Ireland, where decades of systemic sexual abuse have led to widespread anger. The pope wrote that the church would conduct a full and open investigation, and he urged clergy to cooperate fully with civilian authorities. The pope must reconcile those words with at least some of his past actions, which appear to have been in line with the church's attempts to protect the institution rather than the victims. If Ratzinger ignored the urging of American bishops to act against Murphy, then the future pope's actions were akin to those of Cardinal Law and others who ignored serious, substantiated allegations against priests and enabled those priests to continue preying on children. The pope and the Vatican have no way out except to uncover and acknowledge the truth, tend to the victims and hold themselves personally responsible if they failed to act. Anything less would be to undermine further the faith of all Catholics in the church hierarchy. The world, more than ever, needs the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church, but it will only be able to continue to wield that authority if the world and adherents to the faith are able to believe in the leaders of the faith.
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