Wait 'till the fire turns green

The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked.

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.

Let me get this straight, now: someone gets accused - with a good deal of apparent proof - that he's been sexually molesting students. He comes close to facing a procedure that would get him canned for his past abuses by his superiors. And then he gets one of their superiors to overrule them because he already said he was sorry and didn't feel very well at all.

I'd also like to point out the ridiculousness of the idea of an internal statute of limitations trumping the criminal law equivalent - even if Murphy couldn't be tried by the rules of canonical law, he certainly could have been criminally prosecuted if the statute of limitations hadn't been exceeded.

Unless the local cops and courts weren't interested, of course:

Father Murphy not only was never tried or disciplined by the church’s own justice system, but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims.

(Many of you might also note that Jeffrey Dahmer could've been stopped by some of Milwaukee's Finest from killing one of his victims in 1991 - Konerak Sinthasomphone, who was all of 14 at the time - but let's just say that they didn't. And they made jokes after they left Dahmer's apartment, to boot. So let's just say that I'm not quite surprised.)  

Three successive archbishops in Wisconsin were told that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children, the documents show, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities. [emphasis mine]

  Instead of being disciplined, Father Murphy was quietly moved by Archbishop William E. Cousins of Milwaukee to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin in 1974, where he spent his last 24 years working freely with children in parishes, schools and, as one lawsuit charges, a juvenile detention center. He died in 1998, still a priest.

And all this after he allegedly molested over two hundred boys.

Two Hundred.

And what was the Vatican's reaction to the Times piece, you ask?

The Vatican issued a strong defense in its handling of the Murphy case. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said there was no cover-up and denounced what it said was a "clear and despicable intention" to strike at Benedict "at any cost."

Yeah. Sure. It's all about the Pope and his reputation and not about all those kids who Murphy may have molested. Pardon me. My mistake.

And people wonder why I have occasional problems with organized religion?