Vatican responds to case of child sexual abuse by US priest

(March 26, 2010) The Vatican defended a decision not to laicize a US Catholic priest who sexually abused up to 200 children, many dearf, despite the recommendation of his bishop that he be removed from the priesthood. In a statement responding to a report in the New York Times, Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi said the case of Father Lawrence Murphy of Milwaukee Archdiocese, Wisconsin, was a "tragic" one that "involved particularly vulnerable victims who suffered terribly from what he did." During the mid-1970s, some of Father Murphy’s victims reported his abuse to civil authorities, who investigated him at that time; however, according to news reports, that investigation was dropped. Fr. Lombardi said that the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was not informed of the matter until in the late 1990s, when Fr. Murphy was elderly and in poor health. The Vatican eventually suggested that the priest continue to be restricted in ministry instead of being laicized, and he died four months later. The New York Times article said Vatican decision not to proceed to a church trial and possible laicization came after the priest wrote a personal appeal to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, who was head of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation at the time. On Thursday, the day the article was published, members of the Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests held a brief demonstration in front of St. Peter’s Basilica, distributing copies of documents related to the case and calling on the pope to disclose how he and the doctrinal congregation handled allegations of sexual abuse by priests.