By Jay Sorgi
WTMJ
March 30, 2010
http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/89544632.html
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MILWAUKEE - Another major player has come forward to give his perspective in a church sex abuse scandal that has linked the case of an abusive priest from Milwaukee to the man who is now Pope.
Fr. Thomas Brundage, who was judicial vicar for the Milwaukee Archdiocese at the time of the case (1996-98), explains that a number of complications extended the length of the case to a point where it could not be completed before the priest accused of child sex abuse, Fr. Lawrence Murphy, passed away.
He also contends that current Pope Benedict XVI had no role in the case, despite recent media reports to the contrary.
When the Archdiocese of Milwaukee started its internal trial regarding Fr. Murphy and cases of sex abuse at a deaf school, Fr. Thomas Brundage essentially served as the judge.
"My role was to find out whether or not Fr. Murphy was guilty of the crimes that he was accused of," said Fr. Brundage, who now lives in Alaska.
To those who wonder why justice in this case was taking so long, he explains the case had a lot of complications.
"We took this matter very seriously. We ran into some major legal conundrums," he stated.
"We ran into some very significant canonical legal problems, beginning with the (Church's) statute of limitations. The Holy See waved the statute. Fr. Murphy had an advocate. In civil law terms, that would have been his lawyer. We had to have meetings on the level at the Vatican, at Washington, D.C. (and) in Milwaukee. We had to have interpreters, and we had to have them state-certified.
Plus, as Fr. Brundage said, a complicated case such as this tends to take time, whether in a church or government courtroom.
"If you're familiar with any legal process, it tends to be slow. That's because we wanted to do it right."
He was still conducting the trial process when Fr. Murphy died less than two years after the process began.
Fr. Brundage was working with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, run by now-Pope Benedict XVI, who has been accused of a cover-up in the case.
Did he have any role?
Despite a letter right from Archbishop Weakland to then-Cardinal Ratzinger, Fr. Brundage says no.
"I do not think that (then) Cardinal Ratzinger was involved in the case at all, and there is no evidence I've seen to show that," said Fr. Brundage.
"At no time in the case, at meetings that I had at the Vatican, in Washington, D.C. and in Milwaukee, was Cardinal Ratzinger's name ever mentioned. That's why I was shocked last Thursday to see in the media an attempt to connect him to this case."
Then what about the letter that then-Archbishop Rembert Weakland sent to him?
"There was no return correspondence from (now-Pope Benedict XVI). It appears as though it was delegated to other people. That would have been a normal protocol."
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