The article was written by Laurie Goodstein here, and at no time did she interview directly any of the people involved in the Milwaukee case with Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, the pedophile priest. Cardinal William Levada wrote an extensive article describing what happened. This is in response to the NY Times article. Fairness, and good journalism, you know, is getting both sides of a story, which the Jurassic Press has decided to not do unless it fits their Secularist Statist agenda. From several sources I've tried to create a timeline of what happened, and why I think Goldstein is a liar, and the NY Times supported her. In this, I hope to provide something closer to the truth, doing journalism as I was trained to do, though I don't have access to interview the players.
Father Murphy, the pedophile, began serving in 1950 at a school for deaf boys in Milwaukee, and did so for 24 years. During the '50's his pedophilia was reported, he was suspended (not enough to be sure), and according to the NY Times, Ratzinger was aware of this. Ratzinger was in Europe at the time. About 22 years pass, and Murphy with his vile behavior rises again. The Archbishop of Milwaukee had to do something, so he wrote to Ratzinger, who had become the Vatican's Congregation for the Defense of the Faith. It appears there may have been two letters, asking for advise how to deal with this. Ratzinger didn't answer the letters, so the Archbishop brought charges against Murphy. An assistant to Ratzinger approved the defrocking of Murphy, and the charges were kept open.
Ratzinger received a letter from Murphy in 1998 saying he had suffered from some strokes. Ratzinger, through his assistant, had Murphy banished, a step from what I gather, is just one short of defrocking. The banishment was contingent on Murphy admitting guilt. A couple weeks before Murphy's death, the letters of guilt and expression of remorse had not been received from Murphy. There were some issues within the Church, and canon law that were causing the delay, or he just may have been too sick. Not being a lawyer or especially a church lawyer, I don't understand what the delay was.
Out of this, it seems that Ratzinger was far away, it was a distant issue that was being taken care of locally, that he had kept the issue open by waiving the statutes of limitation.
The NY Times tried to make this sound like Ratzinger was complicit in a coverup, had protected the guy, had intimate knowledge of the issue.
That the Catholic Church has a major problem is not in doubt. That it has handled this horrible issue of generations of pedophilia as badly as it possibly could, is not in doubt. The Church is paying for it dearly too.
As for the Jurassic Press, maybe instead of creating a story to attack the Pope and the Catholic Church, could do a real story on the venal corrupt judges that let hundreds of pedophiles loose on society on a regular basis.
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