Archbishop Responds to Father Murphy Victim, Mike Jacobs, TMJ4, May 26, 2010

Archbishop Responds to Father Murphy Victim

By Mike Jacobs
TMJ4
May 26, 2010

http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/94960909.html

MILWAUKEE - Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki is offering an apology. He agreed to watch our entire interview with Steven Geier, a man who was abused by Father Lawrence Murphy when Geier was a boy.

In the interview TODAY'S TMJ4'S Mike Jacobs asked Geier about Father Murphy, "Was he a monster?"

Geier's response: "Yes, more than a monster, definitely more than a monster. It was like he was a devil in a priest outfit."

The archbishop was blunt with his response.

"It made me sick. To listen to an individual who was victimized the way Steven was. It both disgusts me as it would any Catholic to think that a young child went through that situation," Archbishop Listecki says.

Steven Geier was a student at St. John's School for the Deaf. Father Murphy molested him four times.

Mike Jacobs: "Does the Catholic Church owe Steven Geier an apology?"

Archbishop Listecki: "I think personally we owe Steven Geier an apology. I certainly, if he were sitting here I would directly tell him how sorry I was that he went through that type of situation and that type of pain."

The archbishop had harsh words for the man who abused 200 boys at St. John's.

Jacobs: "If Father Murphy were seated here today, what would you say to him?"

Listecki: "I'd say you're no longer a priest, Father Murphy. What you've done is you've done tremendous damage to the church. You're a criminal. You're a sinner. You're a perpetrator." He adds, "You've defamed the name of the church, and the name of Jesus to so many people."

But the archbishop defended Pope Benedict. The survivors group 'SNAP' has accused the pope of ignoring the Father Murphy case when the pope was a cardinal.

Jacobs: "Did then Cardinal Ratzinger either fail to act in this case, or attempt to cover up what Father Murphy had done?"

Listecki: "I for one trust the fact that Cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict the XVI, acted appropriately at the time."

The archbishop says the Catholic Church has taken a tough stand on abusive priests.

"No priest with any substantiated allegation of child sexual abuse is functioning at all in the diocese, in the archdiocese," he assured.

Archbishop Listecki believes the Catholic Church is now doing more than any other institution to prevent abuse. Listecki says, "Let me first assure you that we have done everything that we possibly can. We've instituted so many things within the archdiocese to make sure that nothing like this would ever happen."

The archbishop acknowledged that the church was part of the problem in the distant past, but says, now the church is part of the solution.

While he apologized for what happened to Steven Geier, the archbishop stopped short of saying the church should compensate him for what he's gone through. He also wanted to reassure Catholics that this type of thing simply could not happen again--which is one of the reasons he agreed to do the interview.