Priest Abuse Victims Speak out, The Press Association, March 25, 2010

Priest "Abuse Victims" Speak out

The Press Association
March 25, 2010

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5ixuCm1G2Cr7eLV801AqI_9-GtDdg

Four victims of priest sex abuse have been arrested after demonstrating outside the Vatican

A former student of a US priest suspected of molesting up to 200 deaf boys has given details of his alleged offences against him.

Arthur Budzinski, now 61, was one of about 200 deaf boys at the St John's School for the Deaf just outside Milwaukee.

The Vatican strongly defended its decision not to defrock Fr Lawrence Murphy and denounced what it called a campaign to smear Pope Benedict XVI and his aides.

There is renewed interest in the case after it emerged the Pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, had been made aware of the case. In recent weeks, Benedict also came under fire over his handling of an abuse case against a priest in Germany three decades ago when he was a cardinal in charge of the Munich Archdiocese.

In the Milwaukee-area case, Fr Murphy was accused of molesting boys in the confessional, in dormitories, in closets and during field trips while working at the school for the deaf from the 1950s until 1974. Fr Murphy died in 1998 aged 72.

Mr Budzinski, now a bicycle and furniture assembler at a department store, said Fr Murphy preyed on him during the 1960s. The priest was fluent in sign language and often told the boys they were handsome, Mr Budzinski said during an interview in which his daughter interpreted his sign language.

Church and Vatican documents showed that in the mid-1990s, two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by then Cardinal Ratzinger to let them hold a church trial against Fr Murphy. However, Cardinal Ratzinger's deputy at the time decided the alleged molestation occurred too long ago and said Fr Murphy - then ailing and elderly - should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese, according to the documents.

The Vatican issued a strong defence of its handling of the Murphy case. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said there was no cover-up and denounced what it said was a "clear and despicable intention" to strike at Benedict "at any cost".

The Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, issued a statement noting that the Murphy case did not reach the Vatican until 1996 - some 20 years after Milwaukee church authorities first learned of the allegations. Fr Lombardi said the absence of more recent allegations was a factor in the decision not to defrock Fr Murphy.