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	What the Pope Should Have Known By John Hooper Guardian March 26, 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/mar/26/religion-benedict-munich-hullerman-coverup The latest revelations about the Hullermann case show that the present Pope was guilty at least of culpable ignorance Confused? It would be more than forgivable. Such is the multiplicity and complexity of the accusations being levelled at pope Benedict and the Vatican in the sex abuse scandal assailing the Catholic church that it is not easy to make out the wheat amid the chaff. But no one should be in any doubt that today's report in the New York Times, if true, is wheat (though that wholesome analogy may be rather misplaced in the circumstances since we are talking here about particles of information that could prove lethal to the current leadership of the Catholic church). Let's start by going back a day to the disclosures concerning Benedict's handling of a case in the US. That was when he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. A dossier landed on his desk that had to do with the most grotesque imaginable breaches of trust by a priest. Father Lawrence Murphy had abused boys at a boarding school for the deaf. In many cases, they were unable even to tell their parents because their parents did not know sign language. However, as the Vatican pointed out in its rejoinder, there had been no "cover-up" in the sense that term is usually used. The claims against Murphy were not withheld from the civil authorities. In 1974, they had been reported to the police who took no action. It is a timely reminder that 30-odd years ago Catholic prelates were not the only ones reluctant to take action against Catholic priests. But is important to note that the reporting of Murphy's behaviour was no thanks to the church. The police were alerted, not by the local bishop, but by victims. The Catholic hierarchy did react, after a fashion, by removing Murphy from his teaching duties (though, according to one account, the then archbishop volunteered at a meeting with the victims that the church had known about the priest's activities for years). None of this reflects on Benedict. He was brought into the picture only 20 years later – not because Murphy was an abuser, but rather because he had used his position as a confessor to molest his victims. That made his deplorable activities even more heinous. First, it was decided to put him on trial under canon law and then the decision was reversed. That is the charge against Benedict – that he obstructed an action that would have brought Murphy to justice and given justice to his victims. But by the time the case reached Rome, Murphy was a dying man. All things being equal, there would be a powerful argument for saying that the then Joseph Ratzinger and his deputy, Tarcisio Bertone, acted with Christian compassion. But again there is a qualification to be made, and a pretty important one. Murphy's own archbishop, Rembert Weakland, thought he should be tried and defrocked all the same. One of the most interesting documents put on-line by the New York Times is in Italian and consists of the minutes of the meeting on 30 May 1998 at which Weakland was told by Bertone of the steps the Congregation had decided upon. In the words of yesterday's Vatican statement these consisted merely of "restricting Father Murphy's public ministry and requiring that Father Murphy accept full responsibility for the gravity of his acts." The minutes note that: "Before the conclusion of the meeting, Mons. Weakland made a point of reaffirming that it will be difficult to make the deaf-mute community understand the scant extent of these measures." And they make clear why he was disappointed. The archbishop had earlier told Bertone, whom Benedict promoted to be the Vatican's highest official, the secretary of state, that "Father Murphy shows no signs of remorse and seems to be unaware of the gravity of what he has done". With Murphy, however, there are unquestionably two sides to the argument. The same cannot be said in the case of Father Peter Hullermann, the priest who was transferred into Benedict's diocese in the days when he was archbishop of Munich. There the issue is cut and dried. Despite the fact that Hullermann was a known paedophile, he was given parish duties which enabled him to go back to molesting boys. So much so that he was subsequently tried and convicted of doing so. When the story first broke, Benedict's then deputy, Gerhard Gruber, took the rap. According to a statement from the diocese, it was he – and not the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – who took that fateful decision. The idea that the archbishop might not have been involved is, of itself, plausible. Ratzinger at that stage in his career had plenty of other things to worry about. As John Allen pointed out, in the year of Hullermann's arrival in Munich, he was the "relator" or general secretary of a tricky assembly in Rome, the Synod for the Family. That is what makes today's New York Times story so important because it implies that Benedict DID know. It says (a) that the future pope chaired the meeting at which Hullermann's transfer to Munich was approved (nothing wrong there), but (b) that his office was copied in on the subsequent and crucial memo from Gruber moving the priest to parish duties. A short while ago, I spoke to the archbishop's palace in Munich. Their line from there is that it would indeed be normal for the top man's office to be informed, but that "it's not the job of the archbishop to read every [bit of] paper on every decision". No doubt. That, as the current archbishop's spokesman noted, is why the post of vicar-general exists. But this was scarcely a matter of routine. Hullermann was a known paedophile. He was a dangerous man who was being transferred from his own diocese to Munich for "therapy" (rather than being handed over to the police, let it be noted). What was done with him ought to have been an issue of the utmost importance to the archbishop. At the very least, what the New York Times has reported is evidence that on the future pope's watch child abuse was given a scandalously low priority. Let us just change the frame of reference for a second: one commanding officer is asked by another to take into his unit a soldier with a record of sexually abusing women. The new unit's deputy commander subsequently decides to move the soldier out of a section where he could have been kept under close surveillance and sends a memo about his decision to the CO's staff. The soldier then uses his newly restored freedom to assault a female comrade. In the investigation that followed would the military police accept that the CO had known nothing and thus had no responsibility? I reckon they would want to instead why he had not said very clearly to his deputy and staff: "I want to be kept informed about everything to do with that man."
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