Sex abuse scandal in US, Italy taints papacy By NICOLE WINFIELD (AP) - 3/26/10 VATICAN CITY - Revelations that the Vatican halted the investigation of a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys have eerie echoes in Italy, where 67 deaf men and women accused two dozen priests of raping and molesting children for years....On Friday, The New York Times reported that the future pope was kept more closely apprised of a German priest's sex abuse case in 1980 than previous church statements have suggested.
The case of the German priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, has acquired fresh relevance because it unfolded at a time when Cardinal Ratzinger, who was later put in charge of handling thousands of abuse cases on behalf of the Vatican, was in a position to refer the priest for prosecution, or at least to stop him from coming into contact with children, the Times said. Cardinal Ratzinger was copied on a memo that told him that a priest, whom he had approved sending to therapy in 1980 to overcome pedophilia, would return to pastoral work within days of beginning psychiatric treatment, the Times said. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another German parish.
Earlier this month, the Archdiocese of Munich placed full responsibility for the decision to allow the priest to resume his duties on Cardinal Ratzinger's deputy, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber, the Times said.
But the memo cited by the Times says that the future pope not only led a meeting on Jan. 15, 1980, approving the transfer of the priest, but was also kept informed about the priest's reassignment, the newspaper reported....In a signed statement last year, the 67 former pupils at a school for the deaf in Verona described sexual abuse, pedophilia and corporal punishment from the 1950s to the 1980s. They named 24 priests, brothers and lay religious men at the Antonio Provolo Institute for the Deaf. While not all acknowledged being victims, 14 of the 67 wrote sworn statements and made videotapes, detailing abuse, some for years, at the hands of priests and brothers of the Congregation for the Company of Mary. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hYl_IG1-vAhkRRY_xljSBpyW-PdAD9EM47G00
Doctor Asserts Church Ignored Abuse Warnings By NICHOLAS KULISH and KATRIN BENNHOLD 3/18/10 ESSEN, Germany — The German archdiocese led by the future Pope Benedict XVI ignored repeated warnings in the early 1980s by a psychiatrist treating a priest accused of sexually abusing boys that he should not be allowed to work with children, the psychiatrist said Thursday.
"I said, ‘For God's sake, he desperately has to be kept away from working with children,' " the psychiatrist, Dr. Werner Huth, said in a telephone interview from Munich. "I was very unhappy about the entire story." Dr. Huth said he was concerned enough that he set three conditions for treating the priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann: that he stay away from young people and alcohol and be supervised by another priest at all times. Dr. Huth said he issued the explicit warnings — both written and oral — before the future pope, then Joseph Ratzinger, archbishop of Munich and Freising, left Germany for a position in the Vatican in 1982.
In 1980, after abuse complaints from parents in Essen that the priest did not deny, Archbishop Ratzinger approved a decision to move the priest to Munich for therapy. Despite the psychiatrist's warnings, Father Hullermann was allowed to return to parish work almost immediately after his therapy began, interacting with children as well as adults. Less than five years later, he was accused of molesting other boys, and in 1986 he was convicted of sexual abuse in Bavaria....Even after his conviction in 1986, Father Hullermann, now 62, continued working with altar boys for many years.
He was suspended Monday for ignoring a 2008 church order not to work with youths....The court commissioned another psychiatrist, Dr. Johannes Kemper, to examine him and write an expert opinion for the 1986 trial. "Alcohol played a big role," said Dr. Kemper, 66, who had examined Father Hullermann in his practice for half a day. As a prelude to sexual abuse, Dr. Kemper said, "he drank, and then under the influence of alcohol he watched porn videos with the youths."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/world/europe/19church.html
Showing posts with label deaf boys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deaf boys. Show all posts
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Vatican and Pope warned about priest - 200 victims, documents shredded
S.M.A.R.T.'s Ritual Abuse Page
also : Trial: abuse expert says Scouts put boys at risk
Pope knew about US deaf school predator priest, victim says 3/25/10 ST FRANCIS, Milwaukee — A US man claiming he was abused by a predator priest accused of molesting scores of deaf boys said Thursday Pope Benedict XVI knew about the latest sex scandal to rock the church and should be held accountable for it. "The pope knew about this. He should be held accountable," Arthur Budzinski said outside the Archdiocese of Milwaukee after a New York Times report said Vatican officials, including the future pope, failed to act on warnings that Father Lawrence Murphy was abusing boys at a school for the deaf here.
Murphy is believed to have molested as many as 200 boys at St John's School for the Deaf in Wisconsin between 1950 and 1974. The New York Times published documents Thursday which show that top Vatican officials, including then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- who was elected pope in 2005 -- never took action against Murphy, despite many warnings from US bishops.
Budzinski, who is deaf and attended St John's, said in sign language, which was spoken to reporters by his daughter, that Murphy would come into the boys' dorm at night, take them into a closet and sexually molest them. Budzinski, who is now 62, said he told then archbishop of Milwaukee William Cousins and other officials about the abuse in 1974. The archbishop shouted at him and Budzinski "left the meeting crying," he said.
According to the documents published in the New York Times, in the 1990s -- years after the alleged offenses occurred -- then Archbishop of Milwaukee Rembert Weakland and another Wisconsin bishop wrote "directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope," about Murphy. Ratzinger failed to respond to the letter, and a canonical trial authorized by his deputy was halted after Murphy wrote to Ratzinger begging that the proceedings be stopped, the Times said. "While church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal," the newspaper said. Murphy died in 1998, having never been defrocked.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jK4hSiZZ14czYbRfbiPTiCWqVY5w
Vatican warned about Wisconsin priest report 3/25/10 AP Documents charge top Vatican office led by future pope was told of concerns about priest suspected in widespread abuse
Two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — to let them conduct a church trial against a priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys, but the Vatican ordered the process halted, church and Vatican documents show.
Despite the grave allegations, Cardinal Ratzinger's deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that the alleged molestation had occurred too long ago and the accused priest, Rev. Lawrence Murphy, should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese....Church and Vatican documents obtained by two lawyers who have filed lawsuits alleging the Archdiocese of Milwaukee didn't take sufficient action against Rev. Murphy show that as many as 200 deaf students had accused him of molesting them, including in the confessional, while he ran the school.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/vatican-warned-about-wisconsin-priest-report/article1511470/
Wis. priest accused of molesting 200 deaf boys By DINESH RAMDE and GRETCHEN EHLKE, Associated Press Writers Dinesh Ramde And Gretchen Ehlke, 3/25/10 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.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100325/ap_on_re_us/us_church_abuse_wisconsin
Weakland shredded copies of sex abuse reports, documents say
By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel Dec. 3, 2009
Former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland routinely shredded copies of weekly reports about sexual abuse by priests, according to formerly sealed testimony turned over to Milwaukee County's district attorney on Thursday. In a 1993 deposition, Weakland admitted destroying copies of the reports in his office, according to a partial transcript of the deposition released by Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Peter Isely, SNAP's Midwest director, turned over the partial transcript, as well as portions of the logs to which Weakland was referring, to Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and asked him to review them for any possible criminal violations. Chisholm accepted the records and promised a thorough review.
The 16-year-old deposition documents have come to light during the discovery process in more than a dozen civil fraud lawsuits filed against the Milwaukee archdiocese.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/78431087.html
Trial: abuse expert says Scouts put boys at risk - U.S. news By ABBY HAIGHT AP March. 24, 2010 PORTLAND, Ore. - The Boy Scouts of America showed reckless indifference to protecting young Scouts when it kept confidential two decades worth of files on suspected molesters among its troop leaders, a psychologist testified Wednesday as part of a $14 million lawsuit against the organization.
Despite creating a remarkably in-depth file about sexual abusers, the Boy Scouts failed to warn parents or tell authorities about suspected or confessed pedophiles, said Gary Schoener, a national expert and consultant on sexual misconduct in the clergy, health care and other segments of society.
Some boys may have become victims because of the silence, he told the Multnomah County Circuit Court jury....The Boy Scouts began keeping secret files on suspected molesters among its adult volunteers decades ago. Dubbed the "perversion files" by the organization, the more than 1,100 reports from 1965-84 were released into evidence in the suit last week....
Schoener, who studied hundreds of the formerly confidential files, said the detailed documents showed patterns, including how molesters would groom potential victims, how most pedophiles had many victims and how most re-offended. He said it was the most complete picture of sexual abusers and victims in the country at the time. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36028106/ns/us_news/
also : Trial: abuse expert says Scouts put boys at risk
Pope knew about US deaf school predator priest, victim says 3/25/10 ST FRANCIS, Milwaukee — A US man claiming he was abused by a predator priest accused of molesting scores of deaf boys said Thursday Pope Benedict XVI knew about the latest sex scandal to rock the church and should be held accountable for it. "The pope knew about this. He should be held accountable," Arthur Budzinski said outside the Archdiocese of Milwaukee after a New York Times report said Vatican officials, including the future pope, failed to act on warnings that Father Lawrence Murphy was abusing boys at a school for the deaf here.
Murphy is believed to have molested as many as 200 boys at St John's School for the Deaf in Wisconsin between 1950 and 1974. The New York Times published documents Thursday which show that top Vatican officials, including then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- who was elected pope in 2005 -- never took action against Murphy, despite many warnings from US bishops.
Budzinski, who is deaf and attended St John's, said in sign language, which was spoken to reporters by his daughter, that Murphy would come into the boys' dorm at night, take them into a closet and sexually molest them. Budzinski, who is now 62, said he told then archbishop of Milwaukee William Cousins and other officials about the abuse in 1974. The archbishop shouted at him and Budzinski "left the meeting crying," he said.
According to the documents published in the New York Times, in the 1990s -- years after the alleged offenses occurred -- then Archbishop of Milwaukee Rembert Weakland and another Wisconsin bishop wrote "directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope," about Murphy. Ratzinger failed to respond to the letter, and a canonical trial authorized by his deputy was halted after Murphy wrote to Ratzinger begging that the proceedings be stopped, the Times said. "While church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal," the newspaper said. Murphy died in 1998, having never been defrocked.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jK4hSiZZ14czYbRfbiPTiCWqVY5w
Vatican warned about Wisconsin priest report 3/25/10 AP Documents charge top Vatican office led by future pope was told of concerns about priest suspected in widespread abuse
Two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — to let them conduct a church trial against a priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys, but the Vatican ordered the process halted, church and Vatican documents show.
Despite the grave allegations, Cardinal Ratzinger's deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that the alleged molestation had occurred too long ago and the accused priest, Rev. Lawrence Murphy, should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese....Church and Vatican documents obtained by two lawyers who have filed lawsuits alleging the Archdiocese of Milwaukee didn't take sufficient action against Rev. Murphy show that as many as 200 deaf students had accused him of molesting them, including in the confessional, while he ran the school.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/vatican-warned-about-wisconsin-priest-report/article1511470/
Wis. priest accused of molesting 200 deaf boys By DINESH RAMDE and GRETCHEN EHLKE, Associated Press Writers Dinesh Ramde And Gretchen Ehlke, 3/25/10 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.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100325/ap_on_re_us/us_church_abuse_wisconsin
Weakland shredded copies of sex abuse reports, documents say
By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel Dec. 3, 2009
Former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland routinely shredded copies of weekly reports about sexual abuse by priests, according to formerly sealed testimony turned over to Milwaukee County's district attorney on Thursday. In a 1993 deposition, Weakland admitted destroying copies of the reports in his office, according to a partial transcript of the deposition released by Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Peter Isely, SNAP's Midwest director, turned over the partial transcript, as well as portions of the logs to which Weakland was referring, to Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and asked him to review them for any possible criminal violations. Chisholm accepted the records and promised a thorough review.
The 16-year-old deposition documents have come to light during the discovery process in more than a dozen civil fraud lawsuits filed against the Milwaukee archdiocese.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/78431087.html
Trial: abuse expert says Scouts put boys at risk - U.S. news By ABBY HAIGHT AP March. 24, 2010 PORTLAND, Ore. - The Boy Scouts of America showed reckless indifference to protecting young Scouts when it kept confidential two decades worth of files on suspected molesters among its troop leaders, a psychologist testified Wednesday as part of a $14 million lawsuit against the organization.
Despite creating a remarkably in-depth file about sexual abusers, the Boy Scouts failed to warn parents or tell authorities about suspected or confessed pedophiles, said Gary Schoener, a national expert and consultant on sexual misconduct in the clergy, health care and other segments of society.
Some boys may have become victims because of the silence, he told the Multnomah County Circuit Court jury....The Boy Scouts began keeping secret files on suspected molesters among its adult volunteers decades ago. Dubbed the "perversion files" by the organization, the more than 1,100 reports from 1965-84 were released into evidence in the suit last week....
Schoener, who studied hundreds of the formerly confidential files, said the detailed documents showed patterns, including how molesters would groom potential victims, how most pedophiles had many victims and how most re-offended. He said it was the most complete picture of sexual abusers and victims in the country at the time. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36028106/ns/us_news/
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Warned About Abuse, Vatican Failed to Defrock Priest - 200 deaf boys
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN March 24, 2010
Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit. The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal....
The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked....
Father Murphy not only was never tried or disciplined by the church's own justice system, but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims. Three successive archbishops in Wisconsin were told that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children, the documents show, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities. Instead of being disciplined, Father Murphy was quietly moved by Archbishop William E. Cousins of Milwaukee to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin in 1974, where he spent his last 24 years working freely with children in parishes, schools and, as one lawsuit charges, a juvenile detention center. He died in 1998, still a priest....
The Vatican's inaction is not unusual. Only 20 percent of the 3,000 accused priests whose cases went to the church's doctrinal office between 2001 and 2010 were given full church trials, and only some of those were defrocked, according to a recent interview in an Italian newspaper with Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, the chief internal prosecutor at that office....
But the effort to dismiss Father Murphy came to a sudden halt after the priest appealed to Cardinal Ratzinger for leniency. In an interview, Archbishop Weakland said that he recalled a final meeting at the Vatican in May 1998 in which he failed to persuade Cardinal Bertone and other doctrinal officials to grant a canonical trial to defrock Father Murphy. (In 2002, Archbishop Weakland resigned after it became public that he had an affair with a man and used church money to pay him a settlement.)...."In spite of these difficulties," Archbishop Weakland wrote, "we are still hoping we can avoid undue publicity that would be negative toward the church."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25vatican.html
Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit. The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal....
The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked....
Father Murphy not only was never tried or disciplined by the church's own justice system, but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims. Three successive archbishops in Wisconsin were told that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children, the documents show, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities. Instead of being disciplined, Father Murphy was quietly moved by Archbishop William E. Cousins of Milwaukee to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin in 1974, where he spent his last 24 years working freely with children in parishes, schools and, as one lawsuit charges, a juvenile detention center. He died in 1998, still a priest....
The Vatican's inaction is not unusual. Only 20 percent of the 3,000 accused priests whose cases went to the church's doctrinal office between 2001 and 2010 were given full church trials, and only some of those were defrocked, according to a recent interview in an Italian newspaper with Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, the chief internal prosecutor at that office....
But the effort to dismiss Father Murphy came to a sudden halt after the priest appealed to Cardinal Ratzinger for leniency. In an interview, Archbishop Weakland said that he recalled a final meeting at the Vatican in May 1998 in which he failed to persuade Cardinal Bertone and other doctrinal officials to grant a canonical trial to defrock Father Murphy. (In 2002, Archbishop Weakland resigned after it became public that he had an affair with a man and used church money to pay him a settlement.)...."In spite of these difficulties," Archbishop Weakland wrote, "we are still hoping we can avoid undue publicity that would be negative toward the church."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25vatican.html
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