March 26, 2006

Shared secrets reveal much suffering in silence

WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By MARY ZAHN
mzahn@journalsentinel.com
Posted: March 25, 2006
First of two parts

Thirteen-year-old Arthur Budzinski hid under his bed crying. Born to hearing parents who did not speak sign language, he could not tell them of the terror he faced back at St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis.

It was 1962. When the truth was told decades later, they all would weep.

Arthur's story and those of dozens of other adolescent deaf boys who attended the Roman Catholic boarding school hides in the shadows of a snapshot of the school's basketball team:

Eleven boys are dressed in their uniforms, half kneel and half stand. Next to them in a long, black clerical gown holding a basketball is Father Lawrence Murphy, the long-revered, charismatic director of the school.

Of the 11, five of them would be molested by Murphy.

Sometimes it was during confession, and often it was in the dead of night.

Posted by kshaw at March 26, 2006 08:41 AM