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Priest allegedly molested 200 deaf boys Vatican calls effort to involve pope ‘smear’ campaign

BY DINESH RAMDE AND GRETCHEN EHLKE
The Associated Press



    ST. FRANCIS, Wis. — Arthur Budzinski says the first time the priest molested him, he was 12 years old, alone and away from home at a school for the deaf. He says he asked the Rev. Lawrence Murphy to hear his confession, and instead the priest took him into a closet under the stairs and sexually assaulted him.
    Budzinski, now 61, was one of about 200 deaf boys at the St. John’s School for the Deaf just outside Milwaukee who say they were molested by the priest decades ago in a case now creating a scandal for the Vatican and threatening to ensnare Pope Benedict XVI.
    Some of the allegations became public years ago. But they got renewed attention this week after documents obtained by The New York Times showed that Murphy was spared a defrocking in the mid-1990s because he was protected by the Vatican office led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now the pope.
    The Vatican on Thursday strongly defended its decision not to defrock Murphy and denounced what it called a campaign to smear the pope and his aides.
    In recent weeks, Benedict has also come under fire over his handling of an abuse case against a priest in Germany three decades ago when he was a cardinal in charge of the Munich Archdiocese.
    In the Milwaukee-area case, Mur- phy was accused of molesting boys in the confessional, in dormitories, in closets and during field trips while working at the school for the deaf from the 1950s through 1974. Murphy died in 1998 at age 72.
    Budzinski, now a bicycle and furniture assembler at a department store, said Murphy preyed on him during the 1960s. The priest was fluent in sign language and often told the boys they were handsome, Budzinski said Thursday during an interview in which his daughter interpreted his sign language.
    He said he avoided Murphy as much as he could afterward, but when he went to Murphy’s offi ce the following year to make another confession the priest led him to an adjoining room and sexually assaulted him again.
    “It seemed like my father would be walking into a trap every time,” said Budzinski’s 26-year-old daughter, Gigi Budzinski.
    He said Murphy assaulted him a third time the next year in Budzinski’s bed in his dormitory room. Other boys were similarly assaulted, he said.
    “They would sleep in a large open room in bunk beds,” Budzinski’s daughter said. “My father saw other boys being molested, too. They’d never talk about it.”
    Church and Vatican documents showed that in the mid-1990s, two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by Ratzinger to let them hold a church trial against Murphy. ...............>>>>.............>>>>...............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00101&AppName=1

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a case now creating a scandal

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Clergy abuse reflects on 2 popes
Benedict’s role prompts scrutiny
BY VICTOR L. SIMPSON The Associated Press

    VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is facing one of its gravest crises of modern times as sex abuse scandals move ever closer to Pope Benedict XVI — threatening not only his own legacy but also that of his revered predecessor.
    Benedict took a much harder stance on sex abuse than John Paul II when he assumed the papacy five years ago, disciplining a senior cleric championed by the Polish pontiff and defrocking others under a new policy of zero tolerance.
    But the impression remains of a woefully slow-footed church and of a pope who bears responsibility for allowing pedophile priests to keep their parishes.
    In an editorial on Friday, the National Catholic Reporter in the United States called on Benedict to answer questions about his role “in the mismanagement” of sex abuse cases, not only in the current crisis but during his tenure in the 1980s as archbishop of Munich and then as head of the Vatican’s doctrinal and disciplinary office.
    It all comes down to the question of what the pope knew and when. The answer will almost certainly determine the fate of Benedict’s papacy.
    As he approaches Holy Week, the most solemn period on the Christian calendar, victims’ groups and other critics are demanding Benedict accept personal responsibility. A few say he should resign.
    Some fear the crisis will alienate Catholics from the church, with a survey in Benedict’s native Germany already showing disaffection among Catholics while there is deep anger in once very Catholic Ireland.
    As the climate worsens, the Vatican is showing increasing impatience and even anger, denouncing what it says is a campaign to smear the pope.
    L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said this week there was a “clear and despicable intention” to strike at Benedict “at any cost.”
WHAT JOHN PAUL KNEW
    But as attention focuses on Benedict, a perhaps thornier question looms over how much John Paul II, beloved worldwide for his inspirational charisma and courageous stand against communism, knew about sex abuse cases and whether he was too tolerant of pedophile priests.
    John Paul presided over the church when the sex abuse scandal exploded in the United States in 2002 and the Vatican was swamped with complaints and lawsuits under his leadership. Yet during most of his 26-year papacy, individual dioceses and not the Vatican took sole responsibility for investigating misbehavior.
    Professor Nick Cafardi, a canon and civil lawyer and former chairman of the U.S. bishops lay review board that monitored abuse, said Benedict was “very courageous” to reverse Vatican support for the Legionaries of Christ, a sex scandal-tainted organization staunchly defended by John Paul.
    John Paul was already ailing from Parkinson’s disease when the U.S. scandal erupted, a factor supporters say may have kept him from initially realizing its scope.
    While Cardinal Bernard Law became the most high-profile church figure to fall, resigning as archbishop of Boston over the scandal, John Paul gave him a soft landing, appointing him as head of a Rome basilica and keeping him on various Vatican committees.
    The world-traveling John Paul has been put on a fast track for sainthood by Benedict in response to popular demand. Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, the emeritus head of the Vatican’s saint-making office, said this week that historians who studied the pope’s life didn’t find anything problematic in John Paul’s handling of abuse scandals. ............>>>>..............>>>>...................................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00103&AppName=1

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Apologies not enough, pope should punish

Re March 21 article, “Pope issues apology for Irish abuse”: Apologies, apologies from various levels of the Catholic Church. You find them almost daily as you read of past misdeeds in Ireland, Germany and elsewhere.
We have yet to read of a punishment for those responsible for such deeds. To me, all these apologies are like the bells of the church, which, when struck, ring of hollow sounds.

Enough, already.
ED NUNEZ
Guilderland

Quoted from CICERO

I love how the media chooses to run this smear during Lent.  Unbelievable!  

Secularism is on the move.

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Adj.     1.     infallible - incapable of failure or error; "an infallible antidote"; "an infallible memory"; "the Catholic Church considers the Pope infallible";

Quoted from bumblethru

A smear campaign for exactly 'who'? Are you saying that IF the leaders of a religion were involved in wrong doing, that religion would seize to exist? That millions of people would fall from grace?

No disrespect here....but the pope and priests/bishops/cardinals, etc... are just 'men'...human beings' like the rest of mankind.....REALLY! A pope is not infallible.

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Pope opens solemn Holy Week amid sex abuse crisis
Pope opens solemn Holy Week amid one of worst church crises in decades

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:00 a.m., Sunday, March 28, 2010

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI opened Holy Week on Sunday amid one of the most serious crises facing the church in decades, with questions about his handling of cases of pedophile priests and the Vatican acknowledging its "moral credibility" was on the line.

Benedict made no mention of the scandal in his Palm Sunday homily. But one of the prayers, recited in Portuguese during Mass, was "for the young and for those charged with educating them and protecting them."
Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and is the start of the church's Holy Week, which includes the Good Friday re-enactment of Christ's crucifixion and death and his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

This year, the most solemn week on the Catholic Church's liturgical calendar has been stained by a clerical abuse scandal that has spread across Europe to the pope's native Germany. The Vatican has been on the defensive amid mounting questions about the pope's handling of sex abuse cases both when he was archbishop of Munich and when he headed the Vatican's doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was Munich archbishop when a priest was allowed to resume pastoral work with children even while receiving therapy for pedophilia. He was subsequently convicted of abusing minors. In addition, a case has come to light in which Ratzinger's deputy at the Congregation told Wisconsin bishops to squash a church trial for a priest alleged to have abused up to 200 deaf boys.

The Vatican insists Ratzinger was unaware of the Munich priest's move to the pastoral job and has defended its handling of the Wisconsin case...........>>>>...........>>>>............Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=916173#ixzz0jTochaMJ

Quoted from CICERO

The issue that I raise is the timing of the release of the story.  This is basically an old story, just repackaged.  They seem to be beating a dead horse.  Of course the actions or inactions of the church during these allegations is reprehensible.  I just believe that the timing of this story is a little peculiar.

I doubt that all the swine in the media would orchestrate and run 9-11 stories during the Muslim holy time of Ramadan, running stories about how many Muslim clerics continue to preach Jihad against the infidel and continue to encourage 9-11 type suicide attacks against Americans and around the world.  It wouldn't happen.

The media are apologist for the Muslim religion, always regurgitating that it is a "religion of peace" despite the continued violence committed in the name of Allah.  Always claiming that this peaceful religion has been "hijacked" by a "few" extremist.  

Catholics and Christians are fair game for the media swine to attack and run stories that exaggerate the transgressions of the Church.  Painting a picture and portraying molestation in the church in epidemic proportions.  The Catholic Church doesn't get the "it's a few bad priest" benefit of the doubt that the "it's a few extremist" excuse the Muslim's get.

Let's keep on bashing Western religions - by doing so, we can assure that our grandchildren will be bringing prayer rugs to school with them.

Quoted from bumblethru

Again...if the catholic church/the vatican....were to crumble tomorrow, it should not impact the 'faithful'.

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More than one billion Muslims mark the start of Ramadan on Friday - their holiest month of the year, devoted to prayer, fasting and charity.

But for a small minority, it is also regarded as an auspicious time to escalate violence in the name of jihad.

As a result, experts expect a surge in terrorism attacks during Ramadan, when most Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset in a spiritual exercise that teaches discipline, self-restraint and generosity.

This week, in the run-up to Ramadan, hundreds of Muslims were murdered in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Yemen and Somalia.

Seven massive car bombs exploded in Iraq on Wednesday, killing 96 people and injuring 536; yesterday four suicide bombers attacked police posts in Chechnya, just days after a bomb outside a police station in neighbouring Ingushetia killed 25 people and injured 160. Fierce fighting also exploded in Somalia on Friday, killing 22 people, as Islamist rebels launched a Ramadan offensive against African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu.

"The month of Ramadan has a special status as the month of religious spirituality and devotion. However, in Muslim tradition it is also perceived as a month of jihad, a month in which Allah grants military victories to his believers," says a report by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

"It was during Ramadan that Muslims triumphed in many battles throughout the history of jihad for the sake of Allah -- among them the battle of Badr in 624, the conquest of Mecca in 630 and of Andalusia in 711, the battle of Al-Zallaqa (in Andalusia) in 1086, the battle of Ein Jalut in 1260, as well as the 1973 [Yom Kippur War with Israel]."

"Given the historic religious and military significance of Ramadan, Islamist groups, as well as some mainstream Arab organizations, escalate incitement to terrorism during this period," it adds.http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1917717

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Sunnie, being a Roman Catholic I presume you are, how can you imagine this issue did not land in the lap of our current Pope when he was still an underling?  The writer is correct--it ultimately was the responsibility of Milwaukee diocese. I find the subject of "pedophile priests" boring now.  Our church does nothing to really teach seminarians what celibacy means and the difficulty and challenge for someone to maintain that state.  They also don't teach them about the incredible loneliness that comes with priesthood.  The fact that they are on the fringe of everyone's family and yet belong to no one's.  Pedophile priests is indeed a sad mark on our faith but doesn't need to be the end of our tradition.