The Pope and the Wisconsin Child Abuse Case

Damian Thompson in The Daily Telegraph today has an interesting article The Pope, the judge, the paedophile priest and The New York Times.

He refers and includes the full article by Fr Brundage, the priest who presided at the tribunal which proceeded against Fr Lawrence Murphy, the priest who abused about 200 deaf children in the boarding school which he ran in Milwaukee. (see posts below)

The original is at Catholic Anchor, the website of the Diocese of Anchorage: Setting the record straight in the case of abusive Milwaukee priest Father Lawrence Murphy.

Rather surprisingly Father Brundage was not contacted by The New York Times prior to the publication of its article about the case of the Wisconsin priest Lawrence Murphy

Amongst the important points made by Father Brundage are:

1. "Pope Benedict XVI has done more than any other pope or bishop in history to rid the Catholic Church of the scourge of child sexual abuse and provide for those who have been injured"

2. "with regard to the role of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), in this matter, I have no reason to believe that he was involved at all. Placing this matter at his doorstep is a huge leap of logic and information."

3. "Third, the competency to hear cases of sexual abuse of minors shifted from the Roman Rota to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith headed by Cardinal Ratzinger in 2001. Until that time, most appeal cases went to the Rota and it was our experience that cases could languish for years in this court. When the competency was changed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in my observation as well as many of my canonical colleagues, sexual abuse cases were handled expeditiously, fairly, and with due regard to the rights of all the parties involved. I have no doubt that this was the work of then Cardinal Ratzinger."

Now when will the Press and the television accept that the then Cardinal Ratzinger did nothing wrong in the Lawrence Murphy case ?