Pope faces fresh claims of child sex abuse cover-up

[David Guyatt]

A classic non denial denial:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...er-up.html

Vatican denies Pope was involved in sex abuse cover up

The Vatican has denied claims that Pope Benedict XVI failed to defrock a US priest who was accused of molesting up to 200 deaf boys over several years.



Published: 11:01AM GMT 26 Mar 2010

The Vatican has defended the Pope over charges that he failed to act against a priest accused of abusing 200 deaf boys Photo: REUTERS
A Vatican newspaper editorial said the claims were an "ignoble" attack on the Pope and that there was no "cover-up", the BBC reports.
Archbishops had complained about Fr Lawrence Murphy in the 1990s to a Vatican office led by the future pope, but apparently received no response.
Arthur Budzinski is one of Father Murphy's alleged victims. He said that the first time the priest molested him, he was 12 years old, alone and away from home at a school for the deaf. He said 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.
Father Murphy was also 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. He died in 1998 at age 72.
Allegations against Father Murphy resurfaced this week after documents obtained by The New York Times apparently showed that he 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 strongly defended its decision not to defrock Father Murphy and denounced what it called a campaign to smear the Pope and his aides.