Pope faces fresh claims of child sex abuse cover-up

[Susan Grant]

The "Rat" strikes again

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20100325/twl...02f3e.html

Pope faces fresh claims of child sex abuse cover-up

Thursday, March 25 11:24 am



Pope Benedict XVI faced fresh pedophilia cover-up claims as church files suggested he failed to take action against a US priest accused of molesting up to 200 deaf boys. Skip related content

The documents obtained by The New York Times include correspondence between the accused priest, who worked at a school for deaf children in the US state of Wisconsin, and the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1996.

Ratzinger, then part of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was alerted to the accusations against Reverend Lawrence C. Murphy in two letters written to him by the Wisconsin archbishop.

But he failed to respond to the letters, and a secret canonical trial authorized by his deputy was halted after Murphy wrote to the future pope begging that the proceedings be stopped, the Times said.

"I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood," Murphy wrote to the future pope, according to files. "I ask your kind assistance in this matter."

The documents contain no response from Ratzinger, and Murphy died two years later still a priest, the newspaper said.

Murphy worked at the school from 1950 to 1974, and despite multiple allegations against him was afterwards moved to another diocese where he was allowed to continue working freely with children, the Times reported.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi on Thursday issued a full statement, which had been quoted in part by the Times, defending the pope's actions.

He said the Milwaukee diocese was asked at the time to take action by "restricting Father Murphy's public ministry and requiring that Father Murphy accept full responsibility for the gravity of his acts."

The matter was delegated to the archbishop "in light of the facts that Father Murphy was elderly and in very poor health, and that he was living in seclusion and no allegations of abuse had been reported in over 20 years."

"During the mid-1970s, some of Father Murphy's victims reported his abuse to civil authorities (...) The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith was not informed of the matter until some 20 years later," said the statement.

The newly-revealed church files are included in four lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, brought by five men whose lawyers handed the long-secret documents to the newspaper over opposition from the Catholic Church.

The latest revelations come amid a wave of scandals over long-running sex abuse involving Catholic clergy in several other countries, including Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The scandals have been inching closer to the pope himself.

In a case in his native Germany, the Munich and Freising diocese said recently that while archbishop there in 1980, Ratzinger approved giving church housing to a priest suspected of child sex abuse while he received "therapy."

The pope on Saturday apologized for child sex abuse carried out by Irish priests in a pastoral letter expressing "shame and remorse."

"You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated."

Victims argued the letter did not go far enough to address the scandal.

The Wisconsin church documents, the Times said, show that three successive archbishops in the state were informed that Murphy was sexually abusing children but the incidents were never reported to authorities, either criminal or civil.

Victims of Catholic priests say they are angered not only by the scale of abuse committed by clergy, but also by what they deem a pattern of complicity and complacency by senior Vatican officials.

They say high-ranking church officials failed to take abuse claims seriously and effectively covered up crimes, rather than punishing priests and admitting their abuses.

[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.

[Ed Jewett]

This is too widespread for too long to be able to deny. As in other cases, people are waking up, the Internet is spreading information tres rapidement, and the perps are getting caught flat-footed everywhere except -- in too many cases -- in regulatory change, courts of justice, etc. I wish this and lots of other things were not so -- but appearances that are so frequent, persevering, and connected/connectible must be addressed and cannot be swept under the rug, as is happening in centers of power everywhere.

[David Guyatt]

Exactly.

Which is why controlling the internet is very much on the agenda these days.

[Ed Jewett]

Pope Benedict today risked inflaming opinion as he appeared to round on critics of the Catholic church over the widening sexual abuse scandal, saying he would not "be intimidated by ... petty gossip".


The 82-year-old pontiff led tens of thousands of people in a Palm Sunday service in St Peter's square. He did not mention the scandal engulfing the church directly, but parts of his sermon alluded to it.


The pope said that faith in God helped lead one "towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion".
He also spoke of how man can sometimes "fall to the lowest, vulgar levels" and "sink into the swamp of sin and dishonesty".
One prayer read during the mass asked God to help "the young and those who work to educate and protect them". Vatican Radio said it was intended to "sum up the feelings of the church at this difficult time when it confronts the plague of paedophilia".
In the face of one of the gravest scandals in the Catholic church's recent history, the Vatican has chosen to attack the media for what it called an "ignoble attempt" to smear Pope Benedict and his top advisers "at any cost".
The Vatican is facing a barrage of 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 then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the archbishop of Munich when a priest was allowed to resume pastoral work with children even while receiving therapy for paedophilia. He was subsequently convicted of abusing minors. In addition, a case has come to light in which Ratzinger's deputy at the Vatican doctrinal office told Wisconsin bishops to quash a church trial for a priest alleged to have abused up to 200 deaf boys.
The Vatican insists the pope was unaware of the Munich priest's move to the pastoral job and has defended its handling of the Wisconsin case.
Benedict has only spoken out publicly about the scandal in Ireland, writing a letter to the Irish faithful last week in which he chastised Irish bishops for leadership shortcomings and errors in judgment for failing to apply church law to stop abusive priests.
Yesterday, the Vatican spokesman, Federico Lombardi, acknowledged that the way the church responded to the abuse scandal was "crucial for its moral credibility".
He noted that most of the cases that had come to light recently occurred decades ago. "But recognising them, and making amends to the victims, is the price of re-establishing justice and 'purifying memories' that will let us look with renewed commitment together with humility and trust in the future," Lombardi said in a statement on Vatican Radio.
The head of the German bishops' conference has said the Vatican was compiling information from various bishops' conferences around the world with the possible aim of setting out new guidelines for dealing with the problem.
Separately, a retired Italian cardinal and one-time candidate for the papacy said in comments published in the Austrian newspaper Die Presse that celibacy for priests should be reconsidered.
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, a former archbishop of Milan considered one of the more liberal leaders of the church, was quoted as saying that mandatory chastity should be rethought to prevent further abuse cases by clergy and to help the church regain lost trust.
The Vatican has rejected suggestions that celibacy caused the abuse and the pope has reaffirmed it as a gift to God...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/28/pope-condemns-critics-catholic-sexual-abuse

[Magda Hassan]

Put the pope in the dock

Legal immunity cannot hold. The Vatican should feel the full weight of international law
Geoffrey Robertson

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Guyatt
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jan Klimkowski
The Vatican strategy, as far as it can be discerned, appears to be to offer non-apology apologies where the evidence of child abuse cannot be denied, whilst denying any systemic problems and denying that the Church acted inappropriately in moving paedophile priests from parish to parish to continue abusing.

However, if there was to be a proper judicial investigation, this strategy will fail and Pope Ratzinger will end up in prison. Precisely because, once again, Ratzinger was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981-2005, which is the Vatican's intelligence and enforcement arm.

Ratzinger knows where all the skeletons are buried, because he was in charge of burying them.

I suspect Vatican secrecy will win the day though. I cannot imagine lawyers acting for the abused being allowed anywhere near the archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

If things get too difficult the Vatican will issue a diplomatic protest note to the US State Department and the law case will go away.

This is what happened in the class action lawsuit against the Vatican for laundering Yugoslavian gold.

More recently there was some sort of arrangement with Bush not to push the Vatican about the pedophilia law suits and the Vatican wouldn't push Bush on the war crimes and atrocities. I can't recall is it was the panzer pope or the Polish pope though.

Well may the pope defy "the petty gossip of dominant opinion". But the Holy See can no longer ignore international law, which now counts the widespread or systematic sexual abuse of children as a crime against humanity. The anomalous claim of the Vatican to be a state – and of the pope to be a head of state and hence immune from legal action – cannot stand up to scrutiny.
The truly shocking finding of Judge Murphy's commission in Ireland was not merely that sexual abuse was "endemic" in boys' institutions but that the church hierarchy protected the perpetrators and, despite knowledge of their propensity to reoffend, allowed them to take up new positions teaching other children after their victims had been sworn to secrecy.
This conduct, of course, amounted to the criminal offence of aiding and abetting sex with minors. In legal actions against Catholic archdioceses in the US it has been alleged that the same conduct reflected Vatican policy as approved by Cardinal Ratzinger (as the pope then was) as late as November 2002. Sexual assaults were regarded as sins that were subject to church tribunals, and guilty priests were sent on a "pious pilgrimage" while oaths of confidentiality were extracted from their victims.
In the US, 11,750 allegations of child sex abuse have so far featured in actions settled by archdioceses – in Los Angeles for $660m and in Boston for $100m. But some dioceses have gone into bankruptcy and some claimants want higher level accountability – two reasons to sue the pope in person. In 2005 a test case in Texas failed because the Vatican sought and obtained the intercession of President Bush, who agreed to claim sovereign (ie head of state) immunity on the pope's behalf. Bush lawyer John B Bellinger III certified that Pope Benedict the XVI was immune from suit "as the head of a foreign state".
Bellinger is now notorious for his defence of Bush administration torture policies. His opinion on papal immunity is even more questionable. It hinges on the assumption that the Vatican, or its metaphysical emanation, the Holy See, is a state. But the papal states were extinguished by invasion in 1870 and the Vatican was created by fascist Italy in 1929 when Mussolini endowed this tiny enclave – 0.17 of a square mile containing 900 Catholic bureaucrats – with "sovereignty in the international field ... in conformity with its traditions and the exigencies of its mission in the world".
The notion that statehood can be created by another country's unilateral declaration is risible: Iran could make Qom a state overnight, or the UK could launch Canterbury on to the international stage. But it did not take long for Catholic countries to support the pretentions of the Holy See, sending ambassadors and receiving papal nuncios in return. Even the UK maintains an apostolic mission.
The UN at its inception refused membership to the Vatican but has allowed it a unique "observer status", permitting it to become signatory to treaties such as the Law of the Sea and (ironically) the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to speak and vote at UN conferences where it promotes its controversial dogmas on abortion, contraception and homosexuality. This has involved the UN in blatant discrimination on grounds of religion: other faiths are unofficially represented, if at all, by NGOs. But it has encouraged the Vatican to claim statehood – and immunity from liability.
This claim could be challenged successfully in the UK and in the European Court of Human Rights. But in any event, head of state immunity provides no protection for the pope in the international criminal court (see its current indictment of President Bashir). The ICC Statute definition of a crime against humanity includes rape and sexual slavery and other similarly inhumane acts causing harm to mental or physical health, committed against civilians on a widespread or systematic scale, if condoned by a government or a de facto authority. It has been held to cover the recruitment of children as soldiers or sex slaves. If acts of sexual abuse by priests are not isolated or sporadic, but part of a wide practice both known to and unpunished by their de facto authority then they fall within the temporal jurisdiction of the ICC – if that practice continued after July 2002, when the court was established.
Pope Benedict has recently been credited with reforming the system to require the reporting of priests to civil authorities, although initially he blamed the scandal on "gay culture". His admonition last week to the Irish church repeatedly emphasised that heaven still awaits the penitent paedophile priest. The Holy See may deserve respect for offering the prospect of redemption to sinners, but it must be clear that in law the pope does so as a spiritual adviser, and not as an immune sovereign.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...tional-law

[Ed Jewett]

In order to raise funds for DPF, perhaps someone should construct a simple wagering pool device cleared for legal use by non-profit social entities (like a bingo game at the parish hall?) in which we can put our markers down on which international or national miscreant will be "perp-walked" to justice first... First, someone will have to construct the list of possibilities. Ratzinger is one. Perhaps there are lesser variants in that hierarchy. Bush and members of his entourage lengthen the list. I'm sure others can make cases for additional names. Perhaps there should be gradations. 60% of the proceeds would go immediately to a specially-established fund under the direction of the founding members. 30% of the proceeds would be relegated to a fund for future adventures. 5% of the funds would accrue to the winning marker. 5% of the funds would be used for a celebratory event.
:beer::congrats:

[Magda Hassan]

Why the pope refused to name Archbishop Martin as a Cardinal

Sex abuse scandal is over, say Vatican insiders

By FATHER TIM
, Special to IrishCentral.com



Published Thursday, October 21, 2010, 5:23 AM
Updated Thursday, October 21, 2010, 9:15 AM


In passing over Dublin’s courageous Archbishop Diarmuid Martin when he named a batch of new cardinals at the Vatican today, Pope Benedict XVI has finally closed the book on the shocking child sex-abuse scandal and its cover-up in Ireland.
What’s that, you ask? How can the case be closed when there are still priests and other Church officials whose roles in the crime have not been fully explored, when there are very likely still guilty clerics who deserve punishment – both from the Church and from judicial authorities? And what has been done to trace the “exporting” of predator priests from Ireland to all corners of the world where they can escape investigation and continue their crimes?
And what became of justice for the victims of this horror?
Well… We said we were sorry, Benedict and his Vatican entourage endlessly repeat, as if to ask: What else can anybody expect? Why can’t everybody just forgive us and start paying up again when the collection plate comes around?
It’s the understatement of the century to say that Irish Catholics are not in a forgiving mood, and it’s hard to blame them. They have heard all the Church’s regrets, apologies, anguish, concern, contrition, disappointment, discomfort, dissatisfaction, grief, heartache, heartbreak, lamentation, misgivings, nostalgia, penitence, remorse, repentance, self-accusation, self-condemnation, self-disgust, self-reproach and sorrow for a long time now.
Benedict has even allowed the hard-charging Martin to evict a few obvious targets from their lofty Church positions.
But is that all there is? By stacking his list of new cardinals with longtime Vatican insiders – like himself – and carefully avoiding anyone who might bring a reminder of “problems” back to front-and-center – like Martin – Benedict is veering back to the closed and conservative Vatican that vigorously condemns other people’s sins, but hides its own.
Martin is not perfect, but his courage and conviction in fighting the scandal and rooting out the guilty has not earned him the high respect in Ireland he truly deserves from Irish Catholics, who expect instant justice and results from an institution that is simply not built for speed.
His zeal was originally lauded by Rome, which was happy to have someone – anyone – doing something about the mushrooming scandal. But at some point, the increasing volume and stridency of Martin’s campaign grew too sharp and incriminating for the Vatican. They were fine when he fingered and cast out a few of the worst abusers, but as he saw the true scale of the crimes, he knew and proclaimed that it was the Church as an institution that was the biggest part of the problem.
And that was a no-no. The always-right, supreme judge of others was guilty of something? Impossible! Almost heresy! There were just a few bad apples, Rome claimed. A little housekeeping and the dirt would be gone – so what’s this guy Martin trying to stir up?
Small wonder that Benedict called off the crusade – refusing in August to accept the Martin-inspired resignations of two Irish bishops named in the Murphy Report, and then reinstating them. There had previously been wide speculation that Martin was soon to wear a new red hat as one of the Church’s cardinals. Up in smoke!
In a letter to seminarians a few days ago, Benedict – for the first time – spoke of the Church’s much-debated policy on priestly celibacy in the same breath as the sex-abuse scandal:
“Even the most reprehensible abuse cannot discredit the priestly mission, which remains great and pure … in the life of celibacy.” This from the same pontiff who has cynically invited conservative Anglicans and their married priests to leave their church and join the Catholic Church!
Does Benedict just not get it? Far from it: Passing over and undercutting the fiery Martin is simply part of the overall strategy to fill the Curia with even more-conservative loyalists who will, at any cost, protect the Church from its “enemies.”
Like the innocent victims of predator priests and their fellow conspirators.

Father Tim is an Irish-American Jesuit missionary and a frequent contributor to IrishCentral.

[David Guyatt]

Opus Dei has, I believe, a quite strong hold on the Vatican and, if one reads Joel van der Reijden "Dutroux" scandal reports, it will be seen that various witnesses to these horrific child abuse cases (the so called Belgian "X Dossiers"), report that Opus Dei was a principal player in this affair. Indeed, one witness said that there was ("Nec Plus Utra") i.e., "nothing further beyond" Opus Dei. In other words it is the controlling mind.

January 16, 1997, BOB note 466: "He is very afraid. He was a treasurer of the youth section of the PSC. He often met with Michel Dewolf - Philippe Sala and Jean-Paul Dumont. They tried to direct Thoma toward Opus Dei what they considered Nec Plus Ultra [Latin for "nothing further beyond"]. Under the pretext of initiation tests for Opus Dei he was brought to a Black Mass with sexual acts.

Evidence of Jacques Thoma

and

She talked about how members of high society regularly allow themselves to be taken up in different religious cults and sects. In one of her later testimonies X4 mentioned that members of Opus Dei had been among her most sadistic clients.

Evidence of X4

and

At some point Nathalie also mentioned Castle Dongelberg as a place of abuse (owned by Opus Dei). X2 also claimed that children had been abused at Dongelberg, while in other reports the castle is mentioned as a place where conspirators had organized several meetings in the 1970s and 1980s when they attempted to overthrow the Belgian state.

Evidence of Nathalie Waeterschoot