Posted on 03/25/2010 7:00:24 AM PDT by marshmallow
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican did not discipline a Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing up to 200 deaf boys in the United States from the 1950s to the 1970s as Church laws do not require automatic punishment, its spokesman said on Thursday.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that the Vatican did not defrock Rev. Lawrence Murphy in the late 1990s despite receiving clear warnings from his bishops that his case was serious and could embarrass the Church.
The report came amid mounting allegations of sexual abuse by priests in Europe and pressure on bishops, mostly in Ireland, to resign for failing to report cases to civil authorities.
Among 25 internal Church documents the Times posted on its website was a 1996 letter about Murphy to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then the Vatican's top doctrinal official and now Pope Benedict, showing he was informed of his case.
Ratzinger's deputy first advised a secret disciplinary trial but later reversed that in 1998 after Murphy appealed directly to Ratzinger for clemency. The priest died later that year.
Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a statement that Murphy had broken the law but a civil probe into complaints against him in the mid-1970s had been dropped and the Vatican only learned of the allegations 20 years later.
"The canonical (Church law) question presented to the Congregation was unrelated to any potential civil or criminal proceedings against Father Murphy," Lombardi said.
"In such cases, the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties."
EXTENSIVE PAPER TRAIL
The 1996 letter to Ratzinger from the then Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland was not answered, the Times said.
After eight months, Weakland wrote a second letter to Ratzinger's deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), .....................
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Fail.
Answer calls for detailed discussion. Did you not read the exam question? I used the word specifics.
Wiggle, wiggle wiggle.
Let me give you hand and get you started.
The cases occurred between the 1950s and 1970s. Archbishop Weakland, a man with a long history of strained relations and dissent from Church discipline writes to Cardinal Ratzinger about the matter 20 years later. Cardinal Ratzinger does not reply. Weakland writes again, this time to Bertone who advises disciplinary trial. Accused priest then apppeals to Ratzinger for clemency, professes repentance and pleads ill health and Bertone reverses position. Accused dies a short time after.
Please discuss, indicating how Pope protected pedophile and how anyone was harmed by his actions or lack thereof.
“The Nazis ferociously attacked Pius XII for what he said during his famous speech on Christmas 1942. They went on record stating: “Here he [the pope] condemns everything we stand for and he has made himself a mouth-piece of the Jewish warmongers.” When Pius XII spoke in his allocution about “hundreds of thousands” of victims, there was no evidence at that time that the number of victims ran, or was going to run, into the millions. Cornwell accuses the pope of downgrading the Holocaust; however, he does not take into account what was known at that time.”
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0039.html
“Thus, what non criminal recourse did the Church have? Order a canonical trial for one about to die or perhaps urinate on his grave?”
Why not?
“The Council of Constance declared Wycliffe (on 4 May 1415) a stiff-necked heretic and under the ban of the Church. It was decreed that his books be burned and his remains be exhumed. The exhumation was carried out in 1428 when, at the command of Pope Martin V, his remains were dug up, burned, and the ashes cast into the River Swift, which flows through Lutterworth.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe#Last_days
How Horrible!!! I bet it also operates on a presumption of innocence!!!!
Gee ... That sounds familiar.
Where else have I heard of those concepts?
I would respond and carry on this argument with you however factual posts are now being pulled by the mods so this is now a one sided debate.
But do please keep posting articles about abuse and how they are agenda driven.
FOR THE RECORD, your post that was pulled was not “factual”.
Your opinion. It was pulled because you couldn’t stand to look at the children who were abused.
I’ll leave you pedophileprotectors to yourselves.
No, I’m politely asking to stop conversing with me. That’s all. I don’t want to hear your nonsense. Go bother someone else.
Uh huh..................
.............*fingers drumming on table*............
I'm calling you on this one and I aint going away..........
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
Also I pulled the post because I consider it to tacky to use pictures of children to advance that argument.
In any case, it was not factual. It was a picture of some people, and a rather slimy rhetorical question.
I’ll leave you pedophileprotectors
Your resort to slander, personal attacks and attempted mind-reading is noted.
The abuse happened. That's factual.
The agenda is in the attempt to implicate the Pope.
The accusations were made 20-30 years after the alleged abuse.
And though defrocking would have been the appropriate response when it would have actually meant the priest would have no further exposure to children. It would not have done so at the time of the letter to the Vatican. And if the accusations had been recent, yes he the Vatican should have taken steps to defrock him.
And nothing that happened prevented either civil or diocesian authorities from investigating, charging and trying Murphy. I agree both should have. I do not know why the civil authorities declined such action. But believe the Diocese did so in a very misdirected desire to protect the Church. Which was wrong, is wrong and always will be wrong.
So yes there is plenty of fault to be found here. But it is not with the Vatican for declining to initiate a canonical trial 40 years after the violations occured and 20 years after any other investigation into the matter.
I don't hit abuse.
I like to see abusers' abusive posts left up as testimony against them.
Mod doesn't always agree with me ...
Fair enough.
I’ll not refrain from expression my opinions on this most reprehensible matter.
You insist on labeling ACCOUNTABILITY under civil and church law as ‘vigilantism’. I have no idea why.
I want the truth out- past and present.
I want no secrecy and no excuses re. child molestation.
I want those whose job it is to uphold the law to be accountable to it- civilly and religiously.
And I want the same shame that would be applied to anyone in society who suspects or knows of child abuse and does nothing to be applied to ALL who may be guilty in the Church. Twenty years ago or now.
Do you want less?
There are those who want to destroy the Church- all I want to do is make sure WE don’t allow them any ammunition.
And- yes- a canonical trial, no matter the condition of the accused. He would die guilty or vindicated, but others would
know they were not beyond the laws of man, or the Church.
You need to stop trying to silence those with whom you disagree. You’re certainly wasting your time with me.
Pius XII might have made an anti-Nazi speech in 1942, but that, apparenly, ended that. Pius XII went to his grave with his Holocaust inaction being widely noted.
Until Allied forces defeated Germany, it cannot be forgotten that Pius XII was living in Italy — within Nazi cccupied territory.
No one can deny the general pattern: When informed of a priestly abuse case, the priest in question is moved to another parish within the diocese, without regard to whether they might have continuing access to children. The priests involved do not appear to have been otherwise disciplined by the Church in any way. This pattern appears to continue, even when the same priest is accused of abuse in more than one parish. I don’t recall any cases where the priests were transferred to another diocese, where they continued their pattern of abuse, but I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong.
We’ve seen this often enough that, regardless of the specifics of any one case, we recognize the pattern.
It appears that the Vatican made the decision years ago to keep abuse from priests quiet and handle it “in house,” to not air their dirty laundry. I’m sure this decision was made with the best of intentions and the welfare of the Church in mind – “this is an internal problem, we’ll handle it internally, and not give the public a reason to distrust the Church.” They wanted to avoid death by papercut. I’m sure their concern was much less with “protect the pedophile” than with “protect the Church’s reputation.”
The problem is that the decision the Vatican made, however many years (decades? centuries?) ago, was wrong. They avoided being “bitten to death by ducks,” as the saying goes, but now they’re facing a massive and growing scandal that appears to include the current Pope.
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