ds

ocumentation

Introduction

e r v i c e

VOL. XXIII, NO. 5

BENEDICT XVI AND CLERICAL SEX ABUSE

Setting the Record Straight
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MILWAUKEE CHURCH JUDGE CLARIFIES CASE OF ABUSIVE PRIEST FR. MURPHY
by Fr. Thomas Brundage, JLC
TESTIMONY PASTORAL LETTER

TO THE CATHOLICS OF IRELAND

by Pope Benedict XVI

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THE CHURCHS STRICT PATROL AGAINST PEDOPHILIA
with Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna
INTERVIEW

22
THE NEW YORK TIMES AND POPE BENEDICT XVI
by Cardinal William J. Levada
FEATURE

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A PAPAL CONVERSION
by John Allen
FEATURE

29
A RESPONSE TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
by Fr. Raymond J. de Souza
FEATURE

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SCOUNDREL TIME(S)
by George Weigel
FEATURE

TO THE Co r a l L e IRELAND P a s t ATHOLICS OF t t e r

To the Catholics of Ireland*

by Pope Benedict XVI

ear Brothers and Sisters of the Church in Ireland, it is with great concern that I write to you as Pastor of the universal Church. Like yourselves, I have been deeply disturbed by the information which has come to light regarding the abuse of children and vulnerable young people by members of the Church in Ireland, particularly by priests and religious. I can only share in the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so many of you have experienced on learning of these sinful and criminal acts and the way Church authorities in Ireland dealt with them. As you know, I recently invited the Irish bishops to a meeting here in Rome to give an account of their handling of these matters in the past and to outline the steps they have taken to respond to this grave situation. Together with senior officials of the Roman Curia, I listened to what they had to say, both individually and as a group, as they offered an analysis of mistakes made and lessons learned, and a description of the programmes and protocols now in place. Our discussions were frank and constructive.
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I am confident that, as a result, the bishops will now be in a stronger position to carry forward the work of repairing past injustices and confronting the broader issues associated with the abuse of minors in a way consonant with the demands of justice and the teachings of the Gospel. For my part, considering the gravity of these offences, and the often inadequate response to them on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities in your country, I have decided to write this Pastoral Letter to express my closeness to you and to propose a path of healing, renewal and reparation. It is true, as many in your country have pointed out, that the problem of child abuse is peculiar neither to Ireland nor to the Church. Nevertheless, the task you now face is to address the problem of abuse that has occurred within the Irish Catholic community, and to do so with courage and determination. No one imagines that this painful situation will be resolved swiftly. Real
* Abridged version of the Popes letter on the occasion of the child abuse scandal in Ireland.

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D OCUMENTATION SERVICE progress has been made, yet much more remains to be done. Perseverance and prayer are needed, with great trust in the healing power of Gods grace. At the same time, I must also express my conviction that, in order to recover from this grievous wound, the Church in Ireland must first acknowledge before the Lord and before others the serious sins committed against defenceless children. Such an acknowledgement, accompanied by sincere sorrow for the damage caused to these victims and their families, must lead to a concerted effort to ensure the protection of children from similar crimes in the future. As you take up the challenges of this hour, I ask you to remember the rock from which you were hewn (Is 51:1). Reflect upon the generous, often heroic, contributions made by past generations of Irish men and women to the Church and to humanity as a whole, and let this provide the impetus for honest selfexamination and a committed programme of ecclesial and individual renewal. It is my prayer that, assisted by the intercession of her many saints and purified through penance, the Church in Ireland will overcome the present crisis and become once more a convincing witness to the truth and the goodness of Almighty God, made manifest in his Son Jesus Christ. Brief analysis of the present crisis In recent decades, however, the Church in your country has had to confront new and serious challenges to the faith arising from the rapid
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transformation and secularization of Irish society. Fast-paced social change has occurred, often adversely affecting peoples traditional adherence to Catholic teaching and values. All too often, the sacramental and devotional practices that sustain faith and enable it to grow,

I know some of you find it difficult even to enter the doors of a church after all that has occurred. Yet Christs own wounds, transformed by his redemptive sufferings, are the very means by which the power of evil is broken and we are reborn to life and hope. I believe deeply in the healing power of his self-sacrificing loveeven in the darkest and most hopeless situationsto bring liberation and the promise of a new beginning.
such as frequent confession, daily prayer and annual retreats, were neglected. Significant too was the tendency during this period, also on the part of priests and religious, to adopt ways of thinking and assessing secular realities without sufficient reference to the Gospel. The programme of renewal proposed by the Second Vatican Council was sometimes misinterpreted and indeed, in the light of the profound
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TO

THE

C ATHOLICS

OF

IRELAND

social changes that were taking place, it was far from easy to know how best to implement it. In particular, there was a well-intentioned but misguided tendency to avoid penal approaches to canonically irregular situations. It is in this overall context that we must try to understand the disturbing problem of child sexual abuse, which has contributed in no small measure to the weakening of faith and the loss of respect for the Church and her teachings. Only by examining carefully the many elements that gave rise to the present crisis can a clear-sighted diagnosis of its causes be undertaken and effective remedies be found. Certainly, among the contributing factors we can include: inadequate procedures for determining the suitability of candidates for the priesthood and the religious life; insufficient human, moral, intellectual and spiritual formation in seminaries and novitiates; a tendency in society to favour the clergy and other authority figures; and a misplaced concern for the reputation of the Church and the avoidance of scandal, resulting in failure to apply existing canonical penalties and to safeguard the dignity of every person. Urgent action is needed to address these factors, which have had such tragic consequences in the lives of victims and their families, and have obscured the light of the Gospel to a degree that not even centuries of persecution succeeded in doing. On several occasions since my election to the See of Peter, I have met with victims of sexual abuse,
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as indeed I am ready to do in the future. I have sat with them, I have listened to their stories, I have acknowledged their suffering, and I have prayed with them and for them. Earlier in my pontificate, in my concern to address this matter, I asked the bishops of Ireland, to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected, and above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes (Address to the Bishops of Ireland, 28 October 2006). With this Letter, I wish to exhort all of you, as Gods people in Ireland, to reflect on the wounds inflicted on Christs body, the sometimes painful remedies needed to bind and heal them, and the need for unity, charity and mutual support in the long-term process of restoration and ecclesial renewal. I now turn to you with words that come from my heart, and I wish to speak to each of you individually and to all of you as brothers and sisters in the Lord. To the victims of abuse and their families 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. Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen. Those of you who were abused in residential in-

D OCUMENTATION SERVICE stitutions must have felt that there was no escape from your sufferings. It is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the Church. In her name, I openly express the shame and remorse that we all feel. At the same time, I ask you not to lose hope. It is in the communion of the Church that we encounter the person of Jesus Christ, who was himself a victim of injustice and sin. Like you, he still bears the wounds of his own unjust suffering. He understands the depths of your pain and its enduring effect upon your lives and your relationships, including your relationship with the Church. I know some of you find it difficult even to enter the doors of a church after all that has occurred. Yet Christs own wounds, transformed by his redemptive sufferings, are the very means by which the power of evil is broken and we are reborn to life and hope. I believe deeply in the healing power of his self-sacrificing loveeven in the darkest and most hopeless situationsto bring liberation and the promise of a new beginning. Speaking to you as a pastor concerned for the good of all Gods children, I humbly ask you to consider what I have said. I pray that, by drawing nearer to Christ and by participating in the life of his Churcha Church purified by penance and renewed in pastoral charityyou will come to rediscover Christs infinite love for each one of you. I am confident that in this way you will be able to find reconciliation, deep inner healing and peace. To priests and religious who have abused children You betrayed the trust that was placed in you by innocent young people and their parents, and you must answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals. You have forfeited the esteem of the people of Ireland and brought shame and dishonour upon your confreres. Those of you who are priests violated the sanctity of the sacrament of Holy Orders in which Christ makes himself present in us and in our actions. Together with the immense harm done to victims, great damage has been done to the Church and to the public perception of the priesthood and religious life. I urge you to examine your conscience, take responsibility for the sins you have committed, and humbly express your sorrow. Sincere repentance opens the door to Gods forgiveness and the grace of true amendment. By offering prayers and penances for those you have wronged, you should seek to atone personally for your actions. Christs redeeming sacrifice has the power to forgive even the gravest of sins, and to bring forth good from even the most terrible evil. At the same time, Gods justice summons us to give an account of our actions and to conceal nothing. Openly acknowledge your guilt, submit yourselves to the demands of justice, but do not despair of Gods mercy. From the Vatican, 19 March 2010, on the Solemnity of Saint Joseph

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THE C HURCHS STRICT e ATROLe w I n t P r v i AGAINST PEDOPHILIA

The Churchs Strict Patrol Against Pedophilia*

with Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna** Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna is the promoter of justice of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He is effectively the prosecutor of the tribunal of the former Holy Office, whose job it is to investigate what are known as delicta graviora; i.e., the crimes which the Catholic Church considers as being the most serious of all: crimes against the Eucharist and against the sanctity of the Sacrament of Penance, and crimes against the sixth Commandment (thou shall not commit impure acts) committed by a cleric against a person under the age of eighteen. These crimes, in a motu proprio of 2001, Sacramentum sanctitatis tutela, come under the competency of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In effect, it is the promoter of justice who deals with, among other things, the terrible question of priests accused of paedophilia, which are periodically highlighted in the mass media. Msgr. Scicluna, an affable and polite Maltese, has the reputation of scrupulously carrying out the tasks entrusted to him without deferring to anyone. Q: Monsignor, you have the reputation of being tough, yet the Catholic Church is systematically accused of being accommodating towards paedophile priests Msgr. Scicluna: It may be that in the pastperhaps also out of a misdirected desire to protect the good name of the institutionsome bishops were, in practice, too indulgent towards this sad phenomenon. And I say in practice because, in principle, the condemnation of this kind of crime has always been firm and unequivocal. Suffice it to recall, to limit ourselves just to last century, the famous Instruction Crimen Sollicitationis of 1922.
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Q: Wasnt that from 1962? Msgr. Scicluna: No, the first edition dates back to the pontificate of Pius XI. Then, with Blessed John XXIII, the Holy Office issued a new edition for the Council Fathers, but only two thousand copies were printed, which were not enough, and so distribution was postponed sine die. In any case, these were procedural norms to be followed in cases of solicitation during confession, and
* Taken from www.zenit.org. ** Msgr. Charles Scicluna, Promoter of Justice of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, handles cases brought against abusive priests .

D OCUMENTATION SERVICE of other more serious sexually-motivated crimes such as the sexual abuse of minors. Q: Norms which, however, recommended secrecy... Msgr. Scicluna: A poor English translation of that text has led people to think that the Holy See imposed secrecy in order to hide the facts. But this was not so. Secrecy during the investigative phase served to protect the good name of all the people involved; first and foremost, the victims themselves, then the accused priests who have the rightas everyone doesto the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. The Church does not like showcase justice. Norms on sexual abuse have never been understood as a ban on denouncing the crimes to the civil authorities. Q: Nonetheless, that document is periodically cited to accuse the current Pontiff of having beenwhen he was prefect of the former Holy Officeobjectively responsible for a Holy See policy of covering up the facts... Msgr. Scicluna: That accusation is false and calumnious. On this subject I would like to highlight a number of facts. Between 1975 and 1985 I do not believe that any cases of paedophilia committed by priests were brought to the attention of our Congregation. Moreover, following the promulgation of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, there was a period of uncertainty as to which of the delicta graviora were reserved to the competency of this dicastery. Only with the 2001 motu
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proprio did the crime of paedophilia again become our exclusive remit. From that moment Cardinal Ratzinger displayed great wisdom and firmness in handling those cases, also demonstrating great courage in facing some of the most difficult and thorny cases, sine acceptione personarum. Therefore, to accuse the current Pontiff of a cover-up is, I repeat, false and calumnious. Q: What happens when a priest is accused of a delictum gravius? Msgr. Scicluna: If the accusation is well-founded the bishop has the obligation to investigate both the soundness and the subject of the accusation. If the outcome of this initial investigation is consistent, he no longer has any power to act in the matter and must refer the case to our Congregation where it is dealt with by the disciplinary office. Q: How is that office composed? Msgr. Scicluna: Apart from myself who, being one of the superiors of the dicastery, also concern myself with other matters, there are the bureau chief Fr. Pedro Miguel Funes Diaz, seven priests and a lay lawyer who follow these cases. Other officials of the Congregation also make their own vital contribution depending upon the language and specific requirements of each case. Q: That office has been accused of working little and slowly... Msgr. Scicluna: Those are unjustified comments. In 2003 and 2004 a great wave of cases flooded
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THE C HURCHS STRICT P ATROL AGAINST PEDOPHILIA over our desks. Many of them came from the United States and concerned the past. Over recent years, thanks to God, the phenomenon has become greatly reduced, and we now seek to deal with new cases as they arise. Q: How many have you dealt with so far? Msgr. Scicluna: Overall in the last nine years (2001-2010) we have considered accusations concerning around three thousand cases of diocesan and religious priests, which refer to crimes committed over the last fifty years. Q: That is, then, three thousand cases of paedophile priests? Msgr. Scicluna: No, it is not correct to say that. We can say that about sixty percent of the cases chiefly involved sexual attraction towards adolescents of the same sex, another thirty percent involved heterosexual relations, and the remaining ten percent were cases of paedophilia in the true sense of the term; that is, based on sexual attraction towards prepubescent children. The cases of priests accused of paedophilia in the true sense have been about three hundred in nine years. Please dont misunderstand me, these are of course too many, but it must be recognised that the phenomenon is not as widespread as has been believed. Q: The accused, then, are three thousand. How many have been tried and condemned? Msgr. Scicluna: Currently we can say that a full trial, penal or
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administrative, has taken place in twenty percent of cases, normally celebrated in the diocese of origin always under our supervisionand only very rarely here in Rome. We do this also in order to speed up the process. In sixty percent of cases there has been no trial, above all because of the advanced age of the accused, but administrative and disciplinary provisions have been issued against them, such as the obligation not to celebrate Mass with the faithful, not to hear confession, and to live a retired life of prayer. It must be made absolutely clear that in these cases, some of which are particularly sensational and have caught the attention of the media, no absolution has taken place. Its true that there has been no formal condemnation, but if a person is obliged to a life of silence and prayer, then there must be a reason. Q: That still leaves twenty percent of cases... Msgr. Scicluna: We can say that in ten percent of cases, the particularly serious ones in which the proof is overwhelming, the Holy Father has assumed the painful responsibility of authorising a decree of dismissal from the clerical state. This is a very serious but inevitable provision, taken through administrative channels. In the remaining ten percent of cases, it was the accused priests themselves who requested dispensation from the obligations deriving from the priesthood, requests which were promptly accepted. Those involved in these latter cases were priests found in possession of paedophile porno-

D OCUMENTATION SERVICE graphic material and, for this reason, condemned by the civil authorities. Q: Where do these three thousand cases come from? Msgr. Scicluna: Mostly from the United States which, in the years 2003-2004, represented around eighty percent of total cases. In 2009 the United States share had dropped to around twenty-five percent of the 223 cases reported from all over the world. Over recent years (2007-2009), the annual average of cases reported to the Congregation from around the world has been two hundred and fifty. Many countries report only one or two cases. There is, then, a growing diversity and number of countries of origin of cases, but the phenomenon itself is much reduced. It must, in fact, be borne in mind that the overall number of diocesan and religious priests in the world is four hundred thousand, although this statistic does not correspond to the perception that is created when these sad cases occupy the front pages of the newspapers. Q: You said that a full trial has taken place in around twenty percent of the three thousand cases you have examined over the last nine years. Did they all end with the condemnation of the accused? Msgr. Scicluna: Many of the past trials did end with the condemnation of the accused. But there have also been cases in which the priest was declared innocent, or where the accusations were not considered to have sufficient proof. In
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all cases, however, not only is there an examination of the guilt or innocence of the accused priest, but also a discernment as to his fitness for public ministry. Q: A recurring accusation made against the ecclesiastical hierarchy is that of not reporting to the civil authorities when crimes of paedophilia come to their attention. Msgr. Scicluna: In some English-speaking countries, but also in France, if bishops become aware of crimes committed by their priests outside the sacramental seal of Confession, they are obliged to report them to the judicial authorities. This is an onerous duty because the bishops are forced to make a gesture comparable to that of a father denouncing his own son. Nonetheless, our guidance in these cases is to respect the law. Q: And what about countries where bishops do not have this legal obligation? Msgr. Scicluna: In these cases we do not force bishops to denounce their own priests, but encourage them to contact the victims and invite them to denounce the priests by whom they have been abused. Furthermore, we invite the bishops to give all spiritualand not only spiritualassistance to those victims. In a recent case concerning a priest condemned by a civil tribunal in Italy, it was precisely this Congregation that suggested to the plaintiffs, who had turned to us for a canonical trial, that they involve the civil authorities in the interests of victims and to avoid other crimes.
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THE C HURCHS STRICT P ATROL AGAINST PEDOPHILIA Q: A final question: is there any statue of limitation for delicta graviora? Msgr. Scicluna: Here you touch upon what, in my view, is a sensitive point. In the past, that is before 1898, the statue of limitations was something unknown in canon law. For the most serious crimes, it was only with the 2001 motu proprio that a statute of limitations of ten years was introduced. In accordance with these norms in cases of sexual abuse, the ten years begin from the day on which the minor reaches the age of eighteen. Q: Is that enough? Msgr. Scicluna: Practice has shown that the limit of ten years is not enough in this kind of case, in which it would be better to return to the earlier system of delicta graviora not being subject to the statue of limitations. On 7 November 2002, Venerable Servant of God John Paul II granted this dicastery the power to revoke that statue of limitations, case by case following a reasoned request from individual bishops. And this revocation is normally granted. !

Guide to Understanding Basic Congregation for the Doctrine of the faith (CDF) Procedures Concerning Sexual Abuse Allegations*
THE APPLICABLE LAW is the Motu Proprio Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela (SST) of 30 April 2001 together with the 1983 Code of Canon Law. This is an introductory guide which may be helpful to lay persons and non-canonists. A. Preliminary Procedures The local diocese investigates every allegation of sexual abuse of a minor by a cleric. If the allegation has a semblance of truth the case is referred to the CDF. The local bishop transmits all the necessary information to the CDF and expresses his opinion on the procedures to be followed and the measures to be adopted in the short and long term. Civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed. During the preliminary stage and until the case is concluded, the bishop may impose precautionary measures to safeguard the community, including the victims. Indeed, the local bishop always retains power to protect children by restricting the activities of any priest in his diocese. This is part of his ordinary authority, which he is encouraged to exercise to whatever extent is necessary to assure that children do not come to harm, and this power can be exercised at the bishops discretion before, during and after any canonical proceeding.
* Taken from www.vatican.va.

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D OCUMENTATION SERVICE
B. Procedures authorized by the CDF The CDF studies the case presented by the local bishop and also asks for supplementary information where necessary. The CDF has a number of options: B1 Penal Processes The CDF may authorize the local bishop to conduct a judicial penal trial before a local Church tribunal. Any appeal in such cases would eventually be lodged to a tribunal of the CDF. The CDF may authorize the local bishop to conduct an administrative penal process before a delegate of the local bishop assisted by two assessors. The accused priest is called to respond to the accusations and to review the evidence. The accused has a right to present recourse to the CDF against a decree condemning him to a canonical penalty. The decision of the Cardinals members of the CDF is final. Should the cleric be judged guilty, both judicial and administrative penal processes can condemn a cleric to a number of canonical penalties, the most serious of which is dismissal from the clerical state. The question of damages can also be treated directly during these procedures. B2 Cases referred directly to the Holy Father In very grave cases where a civil criminal trial has found the cleric guilty of sexual abuse of minors or where the evidence is overwhelming, the CDF may choose to take the case directly to the Holy Father with the request that the Pope issue a decree of ex officio dismissal from the clerical state. There is no canonical remedy against such a papal decree. The CDF also brings to the Holy Father requests by accused priests who, cognizant of their crimes, ask to be dispensed from the obligation of the priesthood and want to return to the lay state. The Holy Father grants these requests for the good of the Church (pro bono Ecclesiae). B3 Disciplinary Measures In cases where the accused priest has admitted to his crimes and has accepted to live a life of prayer and penance, the CDF authorizes the local bishop to issue a decree prohibiting or restricting the public ministry of such a priest. Such decrees are imposed through a penal precept which would entail a canonical penalty for a violation of the conditions of the decree, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state. Administrative recourse to the CDF is possible against such decrees. The decision of the CDF is final. C. Revision of MP SST For some time the CDF has undertaken a revision of some of the articles of Motu Proprio Sacramentorum Sanctitatis tutela, in order to update the said Motu Proprio of 2001 in the light of special faculties granted to the CDF by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. The proposed modifications under discussion will not change the above-mentioned procedures (A, B1-B3).
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A PAPALa t u r e F e CONVERSION

A Papal Conversion*
by John Allen** n light of recent revelations, Pope Benedict XVI now seems to symbolize the tremendous failure by the Catholic Church to crack down on the sexual abuse of children. Both the popes brief stint as a bishop in Germany 30 years ago and his quarter-century as a top Vatican official are being scoured for records of abusive priests whom he failed to stop, and each case seems to strengthen the indictment. For example, considerable skepticism surrounds the Vaticans insistence that in 1980 the pope, then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger of Munich, was unaware of a decision to transfer a known pedophile priest to his diocese and give him duties in a parish. In some ways, the question of what he knew at the time is almost secondary, since it happened on his watch and ultimately he has to bear the responsibility. However, all the criticism is obscuring something equally important: For anyone who knows the Vaticans history on this issue, Benedict XVI isnt just part of the problem. Hes also a major chapter in the solution. To understand that, its necessary to wind the clock back a decade. Before then, no Vatican office had clear responsibility for cases of priests accused of sexual abuse, which instead were usually
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handledand often ignoredat the diocesan level. In 2001, however, Pope John Paul II assigned responsibility to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vaticans all-important doctrinal office, which was headed by Joseph Ratzinger, then a cardinal. As a result, bishops were required to send their case files to Cardinal Ratzingers office. By all accounts, he studied them with care, making him one of the few churchmen anywhere in the world to have read the documentation on virtually every Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse. The experience gave him a familiarity with the pervasiveness of the problem that virtually no other figure in the Catholic Church can claim. And driven by that encounter with what he would later refer to as filth in the church, Cardinal Ratzinger seems to have undergone a transformation. From that point forward, he and his staff were determined to get something done. One crucial issue Cardinal Ratzinger had to resolve was how to handle the churchs internal dis* Taken from www.nytimes.com. ** John L. Allen Jr. is the senior correspondent for The National Catholic Reporter and the author of The Rise of Benedict XVI.

D OCUMENTATION SERVICE ciplinary procedures for abusive priests. Early on, reformers worried that Rome would insist on full trials in church courts before a priest could be removed from ministry or defrocked. Those trials were widely seen as slow, cumbersome and uncertain, yet many in the Vatican thought they were needed to protect the due process rights of the accused. In the end, Cardinal Ratzinger and his team approved direct administrative action in roughly 60 percent of the cases. Having sorted through the evidence, they concluded that in most cases swift action was more important than preserving the churchs legal formalities. Among Vatican insiders, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith became the primary force pushing for a tough response to the crisis. Other departments sometimes regarded the zero tolerance policy as an over-reaction, not to mention a distortion of the churchs centuries-long legal tradition, in which punishments are supposed to fit the crime, and in which bishops and other superiors have great leeway in meting out discipline. After being elected pope, Benedict made the abuse cases a priority. One of his first acts was to discipline two high-profile clerics against whom sex abuse allegations had been hanging around for decades, but had previously been protected at the highest levels. He is also the first pope ever to meet with victims of abuse, which he did in the United States and Australia in 2008. He spoke openly
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about the crisis some five times during his 2008 visit to the United States. And he became the first pope to devote an entire document to the sex-abuse crisis, his pastoral letter to Ireland. What we are left with are two distinct views of the scandal. The outside world is outraged, rightly, at the churchs decades of ignoring the problem. But those who understand the glacial pace at which change occurs in the Vatican understand that Benedict, admittedly late in the game but more than any other high-ranking official, saw the gravity of the situation and tried to steer a new course. Be that as it may, Benedict now faces a difficult situation inside the church. From the beginning, the sexual abuse crisis has been composed of two interlocking but distinct scandals: the priests who abused, and the bishops who failed to clean it up. The impact of Benedicts post-2001 conversion has been felt mostly at that first level, and he hasnt done nearly as much to enforce new accountability measures for bishops. That, in turn, is what makes revelations about his past so potentially explosive. Can Benedict credibly ride herd on other bishops if his own record, at least before 2001, is no better? The churchs legitimacy rests in large part on that question. Yet to paint Benedict XVI as uniquely villainous doesnt do justice to his record. The pope may still have much ground to cover, but he deserves credit for how far hes come. !
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LETTER

FROM THE

A P CONFERENCE OF U.S.APAL CONVERSION C ATHOLIC BISHOPS

Letter from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

ON BEHALF of the Catholic bishops of the United States, we, the members of the Executive Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, write both to express our deep concern for those harmed by the crime and sin of sexual abuse by clergy and to express our profound gratitude for the assistance that Pope Benedict XVI has given us in our efforts to respond to victims, deal with perpetrators and to create safe environments for children. The recent emergence of more reports of sexual abuse by clergy saddens and angers the Church and causes us shame. If there is anywhere that children should be safe, it should be in their homes and in the Church. We know from our experience how Pope Benedict is deeply concerned for those who have been harmed by sexual abuse and how he has strengthened the Churchs response to victims and supported our efforts to deal with perpetrators. We continue to intensify our efforts to provide safe environments for children in our parishes and schools. Further, we work with others in our communities to address the prevalence of sexual abuse in the larger society. One of the most touching moments of the Holy Fathers visit to the United States in 2008 was his private conversation with victims/survivors at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington. Pope Benedict heard firsthand how sexual abuse has devastated lives. The Holy Father spoke with each person and provided every one time to speak freely to him. They shared their painful experiences and he listened, often clasping their hands and responding tenderly and reassuringly. With the support of both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, we bishops have made a vigorous commitment to do everything in our power to prevent abuse from happening to children. We live out this commitment through the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which calls us to respond with compassion to victims/ survivors, to work diligently to screen those working with children and young people in the Church, to provide child abuse awareness and prevention education, to report suspected abuse to civil law enforcement, and to account for our efforts to protect children and youth through an external annual national audit. As we accompany Christ in His passion and death during this Holy Week, we stand with our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI in prayer for the victims of sexual abuse, for the entire Church and for the world.
Cardinal Francis George, OMI Archbishop of Chicago President Bishop Gerald Kicanas Bishop of Tucson Vice-President Bishop George Murry, SJ Bishop of Youngstown Secretary Archbishop Joseph Kurtz Archbishop of Louisville Treasurer Bishop Arthur Serratelli Bishop of Paterson Elected Member

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D OCUMENTATIONrSERVICE Featu e

Scoundrel Time(s)*
by George Weigel**

he sexual and physical abuse of children and young people is a global plague; its manifestations run the gamut from fondling by teachers to rape by uncles to kidnapping-and-sex-trafficking. In the United States alone, there are reportedly some 39 million victims of childhood sexual abuse. Forty to sixty percent were abused by family members, including stepfathers and live-in boyfriends of a childs motherthus suggesting that abused children are the principal victims of the sexual revolution, the breakdown of marriage, and the hook-up culture. Hofstra University professor Charol Shakeshaft reports that 6-10 percent of public school students have been molested in recent yearssome 290,000 between 1991 and 2000. According to other recent studies, 2 percent of sex abuse offenders were Catholic priestsa phenomenon that spiked between the mid-1960s and the mid1980s but seems to have virtually disappeared (six credible cases of clerical sexual abuse in 2009 were reported in the U.S. bishops annual audit, in a Church of some 65,000,000 members). Yet in a pattern exemplifying the dogs behavior in Proverbs 26:11, the sexual abuse story in the global media is almost entirely a Catholic
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story, in which the Catholic Church is portrayed as the epicenter of the sexual abuse of the young, with hints of an ecclesiastical criminal conspiracy involving sexual predators whose predations continue today. That the vast majority of the abuse cases in the United States took place decades ago is of no consequence to this story line. For the narrative that has been constructed is often less about the protection of the young (for whom the Catholic Church is, by empirical measure, the safest environment for young people in America today) than it is about taking the Church down and, eventually, out, both financially and as a credible voice in the public debate over public policy. For if the Church is a global criminal conspiracy of sexual abusers and their protectors, then the Catholic Church has no claim to a place at the table of public moral argument. The Church itself is in some measure responsible for this. Reprehensible patterns of clerical sexual abuse and misgovernance by the Churchs bishops came to glaring light in the U.S. in 2002; worse pat* Taken from www.firstthings.com. ** George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washingtons Ethics and Public Policy Center, is the author of Pope John Paul IIs biography, Witness to Hope.

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SCOUNDREL TIME( S) terns of corruption have been recently revealed in Ireland. Clericalism, cowardice, fideism about psychotherapys ability to fix sexual predatorsall played their roles in the recycling of abusers into ministry and in the failure of bishops to come to grips with a massive breakdown of conviction and discipline in the post-Vatican II years. For the Churchs sexual abuse crisis has always been that: a crisis of fidelity. Priests who live the noble promises of their ordination are not sexual abusers; bishops who take their custody of the Lords flock seriously, protect the young and recognize that a mans acts can so disfigure his priesthood that he must be removed from public ministry or from the clerical state. That the Catholic Church was slow to recognize the scandal of sexual abuse within the household of faith, and the failures of governance that led to the scandal being horribly mishandled, has been frankly admittedby the bishops of the United States in 2002, and by Pope Benedict XVI in his recent letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland. In recent years, though, no other similarly situated institution has been so transparent about its failures, and none has done as much to clean house. It took too long to get there, to be sure; but we are there. These facts have not sunk in, however, for either the attentive public or the mass public. They do not fit the conventional story line. Moreover, they impede the advance of the larger agenda that some are clearly pursuing in these controversies. For the crisis of sexual abuse
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and episcopal malfeasance has been seized upon by the Churchs enemies to cripple it, morally and financially, and to cripple its leaders. That was the subtext in Boston in 2002 (where the effort was aided by Catholics who want to turn Catholicism into high-church Congregationalism, preferably with themselves in charge). And that is what has happened in recent weeks, as a global media attack has swirled around Pope Benedict XVI, following the revelation of odious abuse cases throughout Europe. In his native Germany, Der Spiegel has called for the popes resignation; similar cries for papal blood have been raised in Ireland, a once-Catholic country now home to the most aggressively secularist press in Europe. But it was the New York Times front page of March 25 that demonstrated just how low those determined to bring the Church down were prepared to go. Rembert Weakland is the emeritus archbishop of Milwaukee, notorious for having paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to satisfy the demands of his former male lover. Jeff Anderson is a Minnesota-based attorney who has made a substantial amount of money out of sex abuse settlements, and who is party to ongoing litigation intended to bring the resources of the Vatican within the reach of contingency-fee lawyers in the United States. Yet these two utterly implausibleand, in any serious journalistic sense, disqualifiedsources were those the Times cited in a story claiming that, as cardinal prefect of the Con-

D OCUMENTATION SERVICE gregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [CDF], Joseph Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI, had prevented sanctions against Father Lawrence Murphy, a diabolical Milwaukee priest who, decades before, had abused some 200 deaf children in his pastoral care. This was simply not true, as the legal papers from the Murphy case the Times provided on its Web site demonstrated. The facts, alas, seem to be of little interest to those whose primary concern is to nail down the narrative of global Catholic criminality, centered in the Vatican. The Times descent into tabloid sourcing and innuendo was even more offensive because of recent hard news developments that underscore Pope Benedicts determination to root out what he once described as the filth in the Church. There was, for example, the popes March 20 letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland, which was unsparing in its condemnation of clerical sexual offenders (...you betrayed the trust that was placed in you by innocent young people and their parents and you must answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals) and unprecedented in its critique of malfeasant bishops (grave errors of judgment were made and failures of leadership occurred . . . [which have] undermined your credibility and effectiveness). Moreover, the pope mandated an Apostolic Visitation of Irish dioceses, seminaries, and religious congregationsa clear indication that dramatic leadership change in Ireland is coming. In framing his letter to
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Ireland so vigorously, Benedict XVI succeeded in overcoming the institutional Vatican preference for the subjunctive in dealing with situations like this, and the pleas of Irish bishops that he cut them some slack, given the intense pressures they were under at home. That the pope rejected both curial and Irish opposition to his lowering the boom ought to have made clear that Benedict XVI is determined to deal with the problem of sexual abuse and episcopal misgovernance in the strongest terms. But for those obsessing over whether a pope had finally apologized for something (as if John Paul II had not spent a decade and a half cleansing the Churchs historical conscience, as he put it), these unmistakable signals were lost. Then there was the March 25 letter from the leadership of the Legionaries of Christ to Legionary priests and seminarians and the Legion-affiliated movement, Regnum Christi. The letter disavowed the Legions founder, Father Marcial Maciel, as a model for the future, in light of revelations that Maciel had deceived popes, bishops, laity, and his brother Legionaries by living a duplicitous double life that included fathering several children, sexually abusing seminarians, violating the sacrament of penance, and misappropriating funds. It was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger who, as prefect CDF, was determined to discover the truth about Maciel; it was Pope Benedict XVI who put Maciel under virtual ecclesiastical house arrest during his last years, and who then ordered an Apostolic Visitation of
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SCOUNDREL TIME( S) the Legion of Christ that is currently being concluded: hardly the acts of a man at the center of a conspiracy of silence and cover-up. While the Vatican has been far quicker in its recent response to irresponsible media reports and attacks, it could still do better. A documented chronology how the archdiocese of Munich-Freising handled the case of an abusing priest who had been brought to Munich for therapy while Ratzinger was archbishop would help buttress the flat denials, by both the Vatican and the archdiocese, that Ratzinger knowingly reassigned a known abuser to pastoral workanother charge on which the Times and others have been chewing. More and clearer explanations of how the canonical procedures put into place at CDF several years ago have accelerated, not impeded, the Churchs disciplining of abusive clergy would also be useful. So, of course, would elementary fairness from the global media. That seems unlikely to come from those reporters and editors at the New York Times who have abandoned any pretence of maintaining journalistic standards. But it ought not be beyond the capacity of other media outlets to understand that much of the Times recent reporting on the Church has been gravely distorted, and to treat it accordingly. !

Detailed Data on Prevalence of Sexual Abuse of Youths Under 18 by Catholic Priests

The upper line represents the total incidents of alleged abuse for each year of the study while the lower line charts the total number of priests accused in each year of the study.

Annual Count of Incidents Reported and Priests Accused, by Year.

Source: http://www.usccb.org/nrb/johnjaystudy/prev3.pdf

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D OCUMENTATION SERVICE Testimony

Milwaukee Church Judge Clarifies Case of Abusive Priest Fr. Murphy*

by Fr. Thomas Brundage, JLC**

o provide context to this article, I was the Judicial Vicar for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee from 1995-2003. During those years, I presided over four canonical criminal cases, one of which involved Fr. Lawrence Murphy. Two of the four men died during the process. God alone will judge these men. To put some parameters on the following remarks, I am writing this article with the express knowledge and consent of Archbishop Roger Schwietz, OMI, the Archbishop of Anchorage, where I currently serve. Archbishop Schwietz is also the publisher of the Catholic Anchor newspaper. I will limit my comments, because of judicial oaths I have taken as a canon lawyer and as an ecclesiastical judge. However, since my name and comments in the matter of the Fr. Murphy case have been liberally and often inaccurately quoted in the New York Times and in more than 100 other newspapers and on-line periodicals, I feel a freedom to tell part of the story of Fr. Murphys trial from ground zero. As I have found that the report18

ing on this issue has been inaccurate and poor in terms of the facts, I am also writing out of a sense of duty to the truth. The fact that I presided over this trial and have never once been contacted by any news organization for comment speaks for itself. My intent in this column is to accomplish the following: To tell the back-story of what actually happened in the Fr. Murphy case on the local level; To outline the sloppy and inaccurate reporting on the Fr. Murphy case by the New York Times and other media outlets; To assert that 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; To set the record straight with regards to the efforts made by the church to heal the wounds caused
* Taken from catholicanchor.org. ** Then-presiding judge for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee gives first-person account of church trial.

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MILWAUKEE CHURCH JUDGE CLARIFIES C ASE by clergy sexual misconduct. The Catholic Church is probably the safest place for children at this point in history. Before proceeding, it is important to point out the scourge that child sexual abuse has beennot only for the church but for society as well. Few actions can distort a childs life more than sexual abuse. It is a form of emotional and spiritual homicide and it starts a trajectory toward a skewed sense of sexuality. When committed by a person in authority, it creates a distrust of almost anyone, anywhere. As a volunteer prison chaplain in Alaska, I have found a corollary between those who have been incarcerated for child sexual abuse and the priests who have committed such grievous actions. They tend to be very smart and manipulative. They tend to be well liked and charming. They tend to have one aim in lifeto satisfy their hunger. Most are highly narcissistic and do not see the harm that they have caused. They view the children they have abused not as people but as objects. They rarely show remorse and moreover, sometimes portray themselves as the victims. They are, in short, dangerous people and should never be trusted again. Most will recommit their crimes if given a chance. As for the numerous reports about the case of Fr. Murphy, the back-story has not been reported as of yet. In 1996, I was introduced to the story of Fr. Murphy, formerly the principal of St. Johns School for the Deaf in Milwaukee. It had been
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common knowledge for decades that during Fr. Murphys tenure at the school (1950-1974) there had been a scandal at St. Johns involving him and some deaf children. The details, however, were sketchy at best. Courageous advocacy on behalf of the victims (and often their wives), led the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to revisit the matter in 1996. In internal discussions of the curia for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, it became obvious that we needed to take strong and swift action with regard to the wrongs of several decades ago. With the consent of then-Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland, we began an investigation into the allegations of child sexual abuse as well as the violation of the crime of solicitation within the confessional by Fr. Murphy. We proceeded to start a trial against Fr. Murphy. I was the presiding judge in this matter and informed Fr. Murphy that criminal charges were going to be levied against him with regard to child sexual abuse and solicitation in the confessional. In my interactions with Fr. Murphy, I got the impression I was dealing with a man who simply did not get it. He was defensive and threatening. Between 1996 and August, 1998, I interviewed, with the help of a qualified interpreter, about a dozen victims of Fr. Murphy. These were gut-wrenching interviews. In one instance the victim had become a perpetrator himself and had served time in prison for his crimes. I real-

D OCUMENTATION SERVICE ized that this disease is virulent and was easily transmitted to others. I heard stories of distorted lives, sexualities diminished or expunged. These were the darkest days of my own priesthood, having been ordained less than 10 years at the time. Grace-filled spiritual direction has been a Godsend. I also met with a community board of deaf Catholics. They insisted that Fr. Murphy should be removed from the priesthood and highly important to them was their request that he be buried not as a priest but as a layperson. I indicated that a judge, I could not guarantee the first request and could only make a recommendation to the latter request. In the summer of 1998, I ordered Fr. Murphy to be present at a deposition at the chancery in Milwaukee. I received, soon after, a letter from his doctor that he was in frail health and could travel not more than 20 miles (Boulder Junction to Milwaukee would be about 276 miles). A week later, Fr. Murphy died of natural causes in a location about 100 miles from his home With regard to the inaccurate reporting on behalf of the New York Times, the Associated Press, and those that utilized these resources, first of all, I was never contacted by any of these news agencies but they felt free to quote me. Almost all of my quotes are from a document that can be found online with the correspondence between the Holy See and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. In an October 31, 1997 handwritten document, I am quoted as saying odds are that this situation may
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very well be the most horrendous, number wise, and especially because these are physically challenged , vulnerable people. Also quoted is this: Children were approached within the confessional where the question of circumcision began the solicitation. The problem with these statements attributed to me is that they were handwritten. The documents were not written by me and do not resemble my handwriting. The syntax is similar to what I might have said but I have no idea who wrote these statements, yet I am credited as stating them. As a college freshman at the Marquette University School of Journalism, we were told to check, recheck, and triple check our quotes if necessary. I was never contacted by anyone on this document, written by an unknown source to me. Discerning truth takes time and it is apparent that the New York Times, the Associated Press and others did not take the time to get the facts correct. In the documentation in a letter from Archbishop Weakland to thensecretary of the Vaticans Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone on August 19, 1998, Archbishop Weakland stated that he had instructed me to abate the proceedings against Fr. Murphy. Fr. Murphy, however, died only two days later and the fact is that on the day he died, he was still the defendant in a church criminal trial. No one seems to be aware of this. Second, with regard to the role of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), in this
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MILWAUKEE CHURCH JUDGE CLARIFIES C ASE 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. 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. Fourth, Pope Benedict has repeatedly apologized for the shame of the sexual abuse of children in various venues and to a worldwide audience. This has never happened before. He has met with victims. He has reigned in entire conferences of bishops on this matter, the Catholic Bishops of Ireland being the most recent. He has been most reactive and proactive of any international church official in history with regard to the scourge of clergy sexual abuse of minors. Instead of blaming him for inaction on these matters, he has truly been a strong and effective leader on these issues. Finally, over the last 25 years, vigorous action has taken place within the church to avoid harm to

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children. Potential seminarians receive extensive sexual-psychological evaluation prior to admission. Virtually all seminaries concentrate their efforts on the safe environment for children. There have been very few cases of recent sexual abuse of children by clergy during the last decade or more. Catholic dioceses all across the country have taken extraordinary steps to ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults. As one example, which is by no means unique, is in the Archdiocese of Anchorage, where I currently work. Here, virtually every public bathroom in parishes has a sign asking if a person has been abuse by anyone in the church. A phone number is given to report the abuse and almost all church workers in the archdiocese are required to take yearly formation sessions in safe environment classes. I am not sure what more the church can do. To conclude, the events during the 1960s and 1970s of the sexual abuse of minors and solicitation in the confessional by Fr. Lawrence Murphy are unmitigated and gruesome crimes. On behalf of the church, I am deeply sorry and ashamed for the wrongs that have been done by my brother priests but realize my sorrow is probably of little importance 40 years after the fact. The only thing that we can do at this time is to learn the truth, beg for forgiveness, and do whatever is humanly possible to heal the wounds. The rest, I am grateful, is in Gods hands. !

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D OCUMENTATIONrSERVICE Featu e

The New York Times and Pope Benedict XVI*

How it looks to an American in the Vatican
by Cardinal William J. Levada
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

n our melting pot of peoples, languages and backgrounds, Americans are not noted as examples of high culture. But we can take pride as a rule in our passion for fairness. In the Vatican where I currently work, my colleagues whether fellow cardinals at meetings or officials in my officecome from many different countries, continents and cultures. As I write this response today (March 26, 2010) I have had to admit to them that I am not proud of Americas newspaper of record, the New York Times, as a paragon of fairness. I say this because todays Times presents both a lengthy article by Laurie Goodstein, a senior columnist, headlined Warned About Abuse, Vatican Failed to Defrock Priest, and an accompanying editorial entitled The Pope and the Pedophilia Scandal, in which the editors call the Goodstein article a disturbing report (emphasis in original) as a basis for their own charges against the Pope. Both the article and the editorial are deficient by any reasonable standards of fairness that Americans have every
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right and expectation to find in their major media reporting. In her lead paragraph, Goodstein relies on what she describes as newly unearthed files to point out what the Vatican (i.e. then Cardinal Ratzinger and his Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) did not dodefrock Fr. Murphy. Breaking news, apparently. Only after eight paragraphs of purple prose does Goodstein reveal that Fr. Murphy, who criminally abused as many as 200 deaf children while working at a school in the Milwaukee Archdiocese from 1950 to 1974, not only was never tried or disciplined by the churchs 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. But in paragraph 13, commenting on a statement of Fr. Lombardi (the Vatican spokesman) that Church law does not prohibit anyone from reporting cases of abuse to civil authorities, Goodstein writes,
* Taken from www.vatican.va

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THE N EW YORK TIMES He did not address why that had never happened in this case. Did she forget, or did her editors not read, what she wrote in paragraph nine about Murphy getting a pass from the police and prosecutors? By her own account it seems clear that criminal authorities had been notified, most probably by the victims and their families.

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It is not difficult for me to think that Professor Ratzinger, appointed as Archbishop of Munich in 1977, would have done as most new bishops do: allow those already in place in an administration of 400 or 500 people to do the jobs assigned to them.
Goodsteins account bounces back and forth as if there were not some 20 plus years intervening between reports in the 1960 and 70s to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and local police, and Archbishop Weaklands appeal for help to the Vatican in 1996. Why? Because the point of the article is not about failures on the part of church and civil authorities to act properly at the time. I, for one, looking back at this report agree that Fr. Murphy deserved to be dismissed from the clerical state for his egregious criminal behavior, which would normally have resulted from a canonical trial. The point of Goodsteins article, however, is to attribute the failure
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to accomplish this dismissal to Pope Benedict, instead of to diocesan decisions at the time. She uses the technique of repeating the many escalating charges and accusations from various sources (not least from her own newspaper), and tries to use these newly unearthed files as the basis for accusing the pope of leniency and inaction in this case and presumably in others. It seems to me, on the other hand, that we owe Pope Benedict a great debt of gratitude for introducing the procedures that have helped the Church to take action in the face of the scandal of priestly sexual abuse of minors. These efforts began when the Pope served as Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and continued after he was elected Pope. That the Times has published a series of articles in which the important contribution he has madeespecially in the development and implementation of Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela, the Motu proprio issued by Pope John Paul II in 2001is ignored, seems to me to warrant the charge of lack of fairness which should be the hallmark of any reputable newspaper. Let me tell you what I think a fair reading of the Milwaukee case would seem to indicate. The reasons why church and civil authorities took no action in the 1960s and 70s is apparently not contained in these newly emerged files. Nor does the Times seem interested in finding out why. But what does emerge is this: after almost 20 years as Archbishop, Weakland wrote to the Congregation asking for help in

D OCUMENTATION SERVICE dealing with this terrible case of serial abuse. The Congregation approved his decision to undertake a canonical trial, since the case involved solicitation in confession one of the graviora delicta (most grave crimes) for which the Congregation had responsibility to investigate and take appropriate action. process would be useless if the priest were dying. Indeed, I have recently received an unsolicited letter from the judicial vicar who was presiding judge in the canonical trial telling me that he never received any communication about suspending the trial, and would not have agreed to it. But Fr. Murphy had died in the meantime. As a believer, I have no doubt that Murphy will face the One who judges both the living and the dead. Goodstein also refers to what she calls other accusations about the reassignment of a priest who had previously abused a child/children in another diocese by the Archdiocese of Munich. But the Archdiocese has repeatedly explained that the responsible Vicar General, Mons. Gruber, admitted his mistake in making that assignment. It is anachronistic for Goodstein and the Times to imply that the knowledge about sexual abuse that we have in 2010 should have somehow been intuited by those in authority in 1980. It is not difficult for me to think that Professor Ratzinger, appointed as Archbishop of Munich in 1977, would have done as most new bishops do: allow those already in place in an administration of 400 or 500 people to do the jobs assigned to them. As I look back on my own personal history as a priest and bishop, I can say that in 1980 I had never heard of any accusation of such sexual abuse by a priest. It was only in 1985, as an Auxiliary Bishop attending a meeting of our U.S. Bishops Conference where data on this matter was presented, that I
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Many child victims are reluctant to report incidents of sexual abuse by clergy. When they come forward as adults, the most frequent reason they give is not to ask for punishment of the priest, but to make the bishop and personnel director aware so that other children can be spared the trauma that they have experienced.
Only when it learned that Murphy was dying did the Congregation suggest to Weakland that the canonical trial be suspended, since it would involve a lengthy process of taking testimony from a number of deaf victims from prior decades, as well as from the accused priest. Instead it proposed measures to ensure that appropriate restrictions on his ministry be taken. Goodstein infers that this action implies leniency toward a priest guilty of heinous crimes. My interpretation would be that the Congregation realized that the complex canonical

THE N EW YORK TIMES became aware of some of the issues. In 1986, when I was appointed Archbishop in Portland, I began to deal personally with accusations of the crime of sexual abuse, and although my learning curve was rapid, it was also limited by the particular cases called to my attention.

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In dealing with priests, I learned that many priests, when confronted with accusations from the past, spontaneously admitted their guilt. On the other hand, I also learned that denial is not uncommon.
Here are a few things I have learned since that time: many child victims are reluctant to report incidents of sexual abuse by clergy. When they come forward as adults, the most frequent reason they give is not to ask for punishment of the priest, but to make the bishop and personnel director aware so that other children can be spared the trauma that they have experienced. In dealing with priests, I learned that many priests, when confronted with accusations from the past, spontaneously admitted their guilt. On the other hand, I also learned that denial is not uncommon. I have found that even programs of residential therapy have not succeeded in breaking through such denial in some cases. Even professional therapists did not arrive at a clear diagnosis in some of these cases; often
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their recommendations were too vague to be helpful. On the other hand, therapists have been very helpful to victims in dealing with the long-range effects of their childhood abuse. In both Portland and San Francisco where I dealt with issues of sexual abuse, the dioceses always made funds available (often through diocesan insurance coverage) for therapy to victims of sexual abuse. From the point of view of ecclesiastical procedures, the explosion of the sexual abuse question in the United States led to the adoption, at a meeting of the Bishops Conference in Dallas in 2002, of a Charter for the Protection of Minors from Sexual Abuse. This Charter provides for uniform guidelines on reporting sexual abuse, on structures of accountability (Boards involving clergy, religious and laity, including experts), reports to a national Board, and education programs for parishes and schools in raising awareness and prevention of sexual abuse of children. In a number of other countries similar programs have been adopted by Church authorities: one of the first was adopted by the Bishops Conference of England and Wales in response to the Nolan Report made by a highlevel commission of independent experts in 2001. It was only in 2001, with the publication of Pope John Paul IIs Motu proprio Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela (SST), that responsibility for guiding the Catholic Churchs response to the problem of sexual abuse of minors by clerics was assigned to the Congre-

D OCUMENTATION SERVICE gation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This papal document was prepared for Pope John Paul II under the guidance of Cardinal Ratzinger as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. advantage in missionary and small dioceses that do not have a strong complement of well-trained canon lawyers. It provides for erecting inter-diocesan tribunals to assist small dioceses. The Congregation has faculties allowing it derogate from the prescription of a crime (statute of limitations) in order to permit justice to be done even for historical cases. Moreover, SST has amended canon law in cases of sexual abuse to adjust the age of a minor to 18 to correspond with the civil law in many countries today. It provides a point of reference for bishops and religious superiors to obtain uniform advice about handling priests cases. Perhaps most of all, it has designated cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics as graviora delicta: most grave crimes, like the crimes against the sacraments of Eucharist and Penance perennially assigned to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This in itself has shown the seriousness with which todays Church undertakes its responsibility to assist bishops and religious superiors to prevent these crimes from happening in the future, and to punish them when they happen. Here is a legacy of Pope Benedict that greatly facilitates the work of the Congregation which I now have the privilege to lead, to the benefit of the entire Church. After the Dallas Charter in 2002, I was appointed (at the time as Archbishop of San Francisco) to a team of four bishops to seek approval of the Holy See for the Essential Norms that the American Bishops developed to allow us to deal with
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SST has designated cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics as graviora delicta: most grave crimes, like the crimes against the sacraments of Eucharist and Penance perennially assigned to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Contrary to some media reports, SST did not remove the local bishops responsibility for acting in cases of reported sexual abuse of minors by clerics. Nor was it, as some have theorized, part of a plot from on high to interfere with civil jurisdiction in such cases. Instead, SST directs bishops to report credible allegations of abuse to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is able to provide a service to the bishops to ensure that cases are handled properly, in accord with applicable ecclesiastical law. Here are some of the advances made by this new Church legislation (SST). It has allowed for a streamlined administrative process in arriving at a judgment, thus reserving the more formal process of a canonical trial to more complex cases. This has been of particular

THE N EW YORK TIMES abuse questions. Because these norms intersected with existing canon law, they required approval before being implemented as particular law for our country. Under the chairmanship of Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago and currently President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, our team worked with Vatican canonical experts at several meetings. We found in Cardinal Ratzinger, and in the experts he assigned to meet with us, a sympathetic understanding of the problems we faced as American bishops. Largely through his guidance we were able to bring our work to a successful conclusion.

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This in itself has shown the seriousness with which todays Church undertakes its responsibility to assist bishops and religious superiors to prevent these crimes from happening in the future, and to punish them when they happen.
The Times editorial wonders how Vatican officials did not draw the lessons of the grueling scandal in the United States, where more than 700 priests were dismissed over a three-year period. I can assure the Times that the Vatican in reality did not then and does not now ignore those lessons. But the Times editorial goes on to show the usual bias: But then we read Laurie
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Goodsteins disturbing report... about how the pope, while he was still a cardinal, was personally warned about a priest But church leaders chose to protect the church instead of children. The report illuminated the kind of behavior the church was willing to excuse to avoid scandal. Excuse me, editors. Even the Goodstein article, based on newly unearthed files, places the words about protecting the Church from scandal on the lips of Archbishop Weakland, not the pope. It is just this kind of anachronistic conflation that I think warrants my accusation that the Times, in rushing to a guilty verdict, lacks fairness in its coverage of Pope Benedict. As a full-time member of the Roman Curia, the governing structure that carries out the Holy Sees tasks, I do not have time to deal with the Timess subsequent almost daily articles by Rachel Donadio and others, much less with Maureen Dowds silly parroting of Goodsteins disturbing report. But about a man with and for whom I have the privilege of working, as his successor Prefect, a pope whose encyclicals on love and hope and economic virtue have both surprised us and made us think, whose weekly catecheses and Holy Week homilies inspire us, and yes, whose pro-active work to help the Church deal effectively with the sexual abuse of minors continues to enable us today, I ask the Times to reconsider its attack mode about Pope Benedict XVI and give the world a more balanced view of a leader it can and should count on. !

D OCUMENTATION SERVICE

Vatican Statement on the Murphy Case

The following is the full text of the statement given to the New York Times by Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the director of the Vatican press office. THE TRAGIC CASE of Fr. Lawrence Murphy, a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, involved particularly vulnerable victims who suffered terribly from what he did. By sexually abusing children who were hearing-impaired, Fr. Murphy violated the law and, more importantly, the sacred trust that his victims had placed in him. During the mid-1970s, some of Fr. Murphys victims reported his abuse to civil authorities, who investigated him at that time; however, according to news reports, that investigation was dropped. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was not informed of the matter until some twenty years later. It has been suggested that a relationship exists between the application of Crimen sollicitationis and the non-reporting of child abuse to civil authorities in this case. In fact, there is no such relationship. Indeed, contrary to some statements that have circulated in the press, neither Crimen nor the Code of Canon Law ever prohibited the reporting of child abuse to law enforcement authorities. In the late 1990s, after over two decades had passed since the abuse had been reported to diocesan officials and the police, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was presented for the first time with the question of how to treat the Murphy case canonically. The Congregation was informed of the matter because it involved solicitation in the confessional, which is a violation of the Sacrament of Penance. It is important to note that the canonical question presented to the Congregation was unrelated to any potential civil or criminal proceedings against Fr. Murphy. In such cases, the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties, but recommends that a judgment be made not excluding even the greatest ecclesiastical penalty of dismissal from the clerical state (cf. Canon 1395, no. 2). In light of the facts that Fr. 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, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith suggested that the Archbishop of Milwaukee give consideration to addressing the situation by, for example, restricting Fr. Murphys public ministry and requiring that Fr. Murphy accept full responsibility for the gravity of his acts. Fr. Murphy died approximately four months later, without further incident.
Source: www.zenit.org.

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A R ESPONSEF e THE u EW YORK T IMES TO a t Nr e

A Response to the New York Times*

by Fr. Raymond J. de Souza** he New York Times on March 25 accused Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, of intervening to prevent a priest, Fr. Lawrence Murphy, from facing penalties for cases of sexual abuse of minors. The story is false. It is unsupported by its own documentation. Indeed, it gives every indication of being part of a coordinated campaign against Pope Benedict, rather than responsible journalism. Before addressing the false substance of the story, the following circumstances are worthy of note: The New York Times story had two sources. First, lawyers who currently have a civil suit pending against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. One of the lawyers, Jeffrey Anderson, also has cases in the United States Supreme Court pending against the Holy See. He has a direct financial interest in the matter being reported. The second source was Archbishop Rembert Weakland, retired archbishop of Milwaukee. He is the most discredited and disgraced bishop in the United States, widely known for mishandling sexualabuse cases during his tenure, and
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guilty of using $450,000 of archdiocesan funds to pay hush money to a former homosexual lover who was blackmailing him. Archbishop Weakland had responsibility for the Fr. Murphy case between 1977 and 1998, when Fr. Murphy died. He has long been embittered that his maladministration of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee earned him the disfavor of Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, long before it was revealed that he had used parishioners money to pay off his clandestine lover. He is prima facie not a reliable source. Laurie Goodstein, the author of the New York Times story, has a recent history with Archbishop Weakland. Last year, upon the release of the disgraced archbishops autobiography, she wrote an unusually sympathetic story that buried all the most serious allegations against him (New York Times, May 14, 2009).

* Taken from corner.nationalreview.com. ** Father Raymond J. de Souza is a chaplain at Queens University in Ontario.

D OCUMENTATION SERVICE A demonstration took place in Rome on Friday, coinciding with the publication of the New York Times story. One might ask how American activists would happen to be in Rome distributing the very documents referred to that day in the New York Times. The appearance here is one of a coordinated campaign, rather than disinterested reporting. of the decisions that allegedly frustrated the trial. Letters are addressed to him; responses come from his deputy. Even leaving that aside, though, the gravamen of the chargethat Cardinal Ratzingers office impeded some investigation is proven utterly false. The documents show that the canonical trial or penal process against Fr. Murphy was never stopped by anyone. In fact, it was only abandoned days before Fr. Murphy died. Cardinal Ratzinger never took a decision in the case, according to the documents. His deputy, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, suggested, given that Fr. Murphy was in failing health and a canonical trial is a complicated matter, that more expeditious means be used to remove him from all ministry. To repeat: The charge that Cardinal Ratzinger did anything wrong is unsupported by the documentation on which the story was based. He does not appear in the record as taking any decision. His office, in the person of his deputy, Archbishop Bertone, agreed that there should be full canonical trial. When it became apparent that Fr. Murphy was in failing health, Archbishop Bertone suggested more expeditious means of removing him from any ministry. Furthermore, under canon law at the time, the principal responsibility for sexual-abuse cases lay with the local bishop. Archbishop Weakland had from 1977 onwards the responsibility of administering penalties to Fr. Murphy. He did nothing until 1996. It was at that
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The charge that Cardinal Ratzinger did anything wrong is unsupported by the documentation on which the story was based. He does not appear in the record as taking any decision. His office, in the person of his deputy, Archbishop Bertone, agreed that there should be full canonical trial.
Its possible that bad sources could still provide the truth. But compromised sources scream out for greater scrutiny. Instead of greater scrutiny of the original story, however, news editors the world over simply parroted the New York Times piece. Which leads us the more fundamental problem: The story is not true, according to its own documentation. The New York Times made available on its own website the supporting documentation for the story. In those documents, Cardinal Ratzinger himself does not take any

A R ESPONSE

TO THE

N EW YORK T IMES 9 July 1980 Officials in the Diocese of Superior write to officials in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee about what ministry Fr. Murphy might undertake in Superior. Archbishop Rembert Weakland, archbishop of Milwaukee since 1977, has been consulted and says it would be unwise to have Fr. Murphy return to ministry with the deaf community. There is no indication that Archbishop Weakland foresees any other measures to be taken in the case. 17 July 1996 More than 20 years after the original abuse allegations, Archbishop Weakland writes to Cardinal Ratzinger, claiming that he has only just discovered that Fr. Murphys sexual abuse involved the sacrament of confessiona still more serious canonical crime. The allegations about the abuse of the sacrament of confession were in the original 1974 allegations. Weakland has been archbishop of Milwaukee by this point for 19 years. It should be noted that for sexualabuse charges, Archbishop Weakland could have proceeded against Fr. Murphy at any time. The matter of solicitation in the sacrament of confession required notifying Rome, but that too could have been done as early as the 1970s. 10 September 1996 Fr. Murphy is notified that a canonical trial will proceed against him. Until 2001, the local bishop had authority to proceed in such trials. The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is now beginning the trial. It is

point that Cardinal Ratzingers office became involved, and it subsequently did nothing to impede the local process. The New York Times flatly got the story wrong, according to its own evidence. Readers may want to speculate on why.

When it became apparent that Fr. Murphy was in failing health, Archbishop Bertone suggested more expeditious means of removing him from any ministry.
Here is the relevant timeline, drawn from the documents the New York Times posted on its own website. 15 May 1974 Abuse by Fr. Lawrence Murphy is alleged by a former student at St. Johns School for the Deaf in Milwaukee. In fact, accusations against Fr. Murphy go back more than a decade. 12 September 1974 Fr. Murphy is granted an official temporary sick leave from St. Johns School for the Deaf. He leaves Milwaukee and moves to northern Wisconsin, in the Diocese of Superior, where he lives in a family home with his mother. He has no official assignment from this point until his death in 1998. He does not return to live in Milwaukee. No canonical penalties are pursued against him.
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D OCUMENTATION SERVICE noteworthy that at this point, no reply has been received from Rome indicating that Archbishop Weakland knew he had that authority to proceed. 24 March 1997 Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, Cardinal Ratzingers deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, advises a canonical trial against Fr. Murphy. 14 May 1997 Archbishop Weakland writes to Archbishop Bertone to say that the penal process against Fr. Murphy has been launched, and notes that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has advised him to proceed even though the statute of limitations has expired. In fact, there is no statute of limitations for solicitation in the sacrament of confession. Throughout the rest of 1997 the preparatory phases of penal process or canonical trial is underway. On 5 January 1998 the Tribunal of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee says that an expedited trial should be concluded within a few months. 12 January 1998 Fr. Murphy, now less than eight months away from his death, appeals to Cardinal Ratzinger that, given his frail health, he be allowed to live out his days in peace. 6 April 1998 Archbishop Bertone, noting the frail health of Fr. Murphy and that there have been no new charges in almost
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25 years, recommends using pastoral measures to ensure Fr. Murphy has no ministry, but without the full burden of a penal process. It is only a suggestion, as the local bishop retains control. 13 May 1998 The Bishop of Superior, where the process has been transferred to and where Fr. Murphy has lived since 1974, rejects the suggestion for pastoral measures. Formal pre-trial proceedings begin on 15 May 1998, continuing the process already begun with the notification that had been issued in September 1996. 30 May 1998 Archbishop Weakland, who is in Rome, meets with officials at the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, including Archbishop Bertone but not including Cardinal Ratzinger, to discuss the case. The penal process is ongoing. No decision taken to stop it, but given the difficulties of a trial after 25 years, other options are explored that would more quickly remove Fr. Murphy from ministry. 19 August 1998 Archbishop Weakland writes that he has halted the canonical trial and penal process against Fr. Murphy and has immediately begun the process to remove him from ministrya quicker option. 21 August 1998 Fr. Murphy dies. His family defies the orders of Archbishop Weakland for a discreet funeral. !
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Theological Centrum
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