Revelations that the Vatican halted the investigation of a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys have eerie echoes in Italy, where 67 deaf men and women accused two dozen priests of raping and molesting children for years.
Only now — a year after the Italian case became public — is the Vatican directing the diocese to interview the victims to hear their testimony about the accusations, The Associated Press learned Thursday.
The two cases are the latest in a burgeoning abuse scandal on both sides of the Atlantic that now threatens to tarnish the papacy itself. The office charged with disciplining clergy was long led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and a church prosecution in the Wisconsin case was stopped after an appeal to Ratzinger.
The Vatican strongly defended Benedict on Thursday and denounced what it said was a concerted campaign to smear him and his aides for a problem that Rome insists is not unique to the Catholic Church.
Benedict’s actions have been marked by “transparency, firmness and severity in shedding light on the various cases of sexual abuse committed by priests and clergymen,” the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said in a front-page article. It lashed out at what it said was a “prevailing trend in the media” to ignore facts and spread an image of the Catholic Church “as if it were the only one responsible for sexual abuses — an image that does not correspond to reality.”
The Vatican was responding to the release of documents, first reported by The New York Times, that showed how the pope’s former office told a Wisconsin bishop to shut down a church trial against the Rev. Lawrence Murphy, a Milwaukee priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys from 1950 to 1975.
Murphy died in 1998, two years after Ratzinger first learned of the accusations, and more than 20 years after they came to the attention of the Milwaukee diocese.
While the Vatican has not directly addressed the Italian abuse case, first reported as part of an AP investigation last September, it bears marked similarities to the allegations brought in Wisconsin. Both involve some of society’s most vulnerable: deaf children for whom the admonition “never tell” is easy to enforce because they have difficulty communicating. And in both, the major priority of church officials grappling with how or whether to discipline accused predators appeared to be protecting the church from scandal.
In a signed statement last year, the 67 former pupils at a school for the deaf in Verona described sexual abuse, pedophilia and corporal punishment from the 1950s to the 1980s. They named 24 priests, brothers and lay religious men at the Antonio Provolo Institute for the Deaf.
While not all acknowledged being victims, 14 of the 67 wrote sworn statements and made videotapes, detailing abuse, some for years, at the hands of priests and brothers of the Congregation for the Company of Mary. One victim, Alessandro Vantini, told the AP last year that priests sodomized him so relentlessly he came to feel “as if I were dead.”
“How could I tell my papa that a priest had sex with me?” Vantini, 59, said through a sign-language interpreter. “You couldn’t tell your parents because the priests would beat you.”
MSNBC
This is embarassing ,especially for me as a Catholic .Maybe we should allow these guys to marry,otherwise altar boys will be an endangered species . Lets hope we wont red card the pope as well. Ka drogba for Benedict
Comment master your Gods must be crazy!!!! please leave the Pope alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How much have you helped the poor at the expense of your girlfriends. ViVA, Yes to Celibacy, chastity.
when one ground nut is rotten doesnt mean all of them are rotten. Please please we beg oh.
Its strange that the press in Zambia has not picked up on the coverage of sex scandles by priests in the catholic church.. Its really saddening and we hope that these child molesters are not hidding in catholic churches in Zambia.
The majority of catholic priests in Zambia are Irish.. Please do read news from Ireland and JUST SEE WHAT they have done to these ‘poor’ kids!!!!!!!!!
It’s funny how people still take the vatican seriously as a religious organisation with all the scandals. This has been happening for over 2000 years and now that nazi in a dress is implicated and you are surprised? The abuse within the catholic church is endemic on a gargantuan scale.
Ba MK, I think we cannot turn a blind eye to these scandals .IYour groundnut anology makes sense if it were a one off incident maybe.But to the extent that the Church leadership is being implicated in an organised cover up means the problem is more systemic . It has to be weeded out before it is institunionalised.
We are both speaking from the same page, trying to protect the vows of chastity . But we cant protect a concept if its not being observed . God Bless ba MK
Too bad no wonder there is nothing like a safe place on earth. First i thot the twin tower in america was safe, then came the twin tower attacks(WTC),i then convinced my self that the white house must be safest after all, then came a couple that slipped right through in and met the president without an invitation and now the church was my last and looking at this all i can do is shout like “Yangu tata mayo”.:-?
the zambian press is sleeping. this is a major story and should be published in zambia so people can see what type of church we are dealing with that supports violence against children and supports genocide like in rwanda. kagame has asked catholics to acknowledge their complicity in the genocide
The scandals of the Catholic church just reflects how much power and influence the church poses. Until its old ways are amended these scandals in the chirch will continue. By the way in Zambia and perhaps in Africa, this power is manifested in the abuse of nuns and married women by priests. Rarely are African priests implicated in child abuse but they are among the top when it comes to marriage interference.
Solution: I suggest the Church reforms it chastity laws but most importantly its hieararchy and appointment rules to the priesthood.
Religon is bullcrap I always said it and I’m saying it again… its just a matter of time that all HELL will break loose when the truth about this myth of God and the rest of it will come out. They use christianity to control small minds and swindle them of their money… wanna find out more? Trust me i know the truth.
#4 Slum Dog, you got it bro’s a nazi in a dress will not make any difference, people are brain washed, period. Churches are the breeding places of all kinds of SIN. :)>-
So Nothing was done to this “Bum Bandit “. because the father confessed and asked for forgiveness.
Did he not think that this would encourage more Bum Bandits.
Havent you pipo read the parable of an adultorous woman in the bible. If you have never fornicated or commited adultery be the first ones to judge. Ba comment! we all have seened and fallen short. The church is built on the rock, you people are just wasting your time. Long Live Catholic church, its up to God to Judge those priests. After o all of you have felt sex before in a sinful way.
Pliz
It’s not just the catholic church ,…. the whole world has gone mad..!…:((
Catholic Priest and Acne
what is the difference between acne and a catholic priest?
Acne usually comes on a boys face after he turns 12
Wait for Zed priests, soon scandles will be exposed too.8-|
Y doesn’t Father Bwalya involve himself in issues like this than ama POLITICS. We cant blame him. We can only blame the POP and Father T. Mpundu, since they involve themselves in ***aul activities and **** talks. Let him turn against sex abusers
#1 Comment Master, if the priests wanted women, they’d go with women. The priests that abuse boys are pedofiles Allowing priests to marry will not change a thing because for these offenders it’s children that turn them on. In the past, men who had this kind of deviance hid themselves away by joining the church. To be fair, there is no church on God’s green earth that has not been tainted by these sorts of scandals, but it’s the Catholic Church that seems to have most of them. The Vatican is a mess because the Pope is still telling people in Africa that birth control is a sin. What a stupid thing to do when condoms could save lives and reduce the cases of HIV!
People you are wasting your time think about bread and butter for your families. You cannot break the catholic church. FORGET. DONT WATSE YOUR TIME. THINK OF WHERE TO GET NEXT FOOD 4 YOUR FAMILIES
ABUSING IFILEMA IS NOT A SCANDAL IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, MAPALO. JUST APOLOGISE> IF PEOPLE DON”T ACCEPT YOUR APOLOGY SHOW THE RED CARD.
the bible says do not judge before God Almighty. All of u Anti-cathorics pliz do not spoil our church by writting all these negatives. May b u go to churches of Angels, all of u speak toungues wen its praying time, this is not the time for politics bt to share the gospel. Much as am concerned, theres no church of angels on this earth, such a church is only in heaven !!
From Lusaka, the Pronuncio’s words of reconciliation, “….the Vatican embassy called on the Zambian Catholics in union with their bishops to pray more in order to strengthen the unity through diversity and the mutual respect and dialogue with all different beliefs, culture and opinions….” I am sure telesphore and his fellow truant priests are not lost on this subtle warning cum advice.