Oh my, we do miss Abp Dolan here.
The principal responsibility for sexual-abuse cases lay with the local Ordinary, Archbishop Rembert Weakland. Leaving the accused abuser priest supposedly "without assignment," and likewise without supervision from 1977 until 1996, and neglecting any effort to discover the scope of his abuses or to minister to his victims, Weakland essentially did nothing.
It was not until 1996 (19 years after Fr. Murphy was put out of circulation on "sick leave") that Weakland first notified Cardinal Ratzinger’s Vatican office, which promptly moved forward on having a canonical trial. Neither Ratzinger nor anyone in his office in any way impeded the local process. In fact, Card. Ratzinger’s Deputy, Cardinal Narciso Bertone, tried in every way to expedite the process, despite the huge gap created by Abp Weakland's negligence and the statute of limitations.
Fr. Murphy died in 1998, before a canonical trial could take place.
The real fault here, as I read the facts, was with Archbishop Weakland, who was notoriously derelict in his duties.
But because the Associated Press, the New York Times, and rhe MSM in general cannot lodge fault with Weakland ---who, as a “progressive,” a payoff-paying gay prelate himself, and a longtime enabler/protector of defiant anti-papal dissenters, is immune from all criticism --- there is this a concerted, international effort to find some way to drag in Pope Benedict.
Maureen Dowd's contemptible opinions ---to take one example --- probably qualify as "petty gossip," and I wouldn't care to comment on them.
But what the New York Times is doing as a "news" organization is vicious, prejudicial, and (it seems to me) probably legally libellous.