Where is the Pope Benedict Scandal In the Wisconsin Abuse Case?

I am tad frustrated that Rod Dreher , a LSU journalism grad, did not look at this story in more detail. See Father Murphy, molester of deaf children

If one looks at the documents the Times provides( which sadly most are not mentioned and few will click on) one can see this is just a amateur slam job.

A Protestant comments at Rods :
I'm not Catholic -- yet, maybe someday, depending on how sour things in the Protestant world continue to go -- but I feel I have to defend the current Pope here. I also have children, and thus have no interest in excusing or protecting pedophiles. I read this article differently than Rod and certain commentators, paying close attention to the timeline:

Fr. Murphy worked at a school for the deaf from 1950-1974.
Fr. Murphy was moved by Archb. Cousins to Superior (WI) 1974-1998.
Ratzinger was head of CDF 1981-2005.
Weakland writes Ratzinger only in 1996, waiting at least three years, from 1993.
Fr. Murphy dies 1998.

The way the article is written makes it sound as if Ratzinger was aware of this for years upon years, which isn't the case.

Further, while Murphy shouldn't have been in ministry, that he remained is the fault of three entities: Cousins, Weakland himself, and the civil authorities, who didn't pursue the matter.

As far as the Vatican's actions from 1996 on, perhaps one could argue a different course should have been taken, but from the article it's not clear if the man was still in active ministry (from what's quoted from Fr. Murphy's letter, it seems he was not long for the world), and if not, then letting the matter rest may -- may -- be a defensible course of action.

It's easy from my vantage point to say the man should have been defrocked at that late stage, but perhaps -- we're not told -- the Vatican decided that at that late stage a full canonical process wouldn't be worth it, given the man's age.

At any rate, this article smells like Weakland's revenge; he's mentioned throughout (8 times, if I counted correctly), and given his well-known disdain for Ratzinger and Catholic orthodoxy, his own shady dealings in the area of sexuality (which the article mentions), and his well-known narcissistic tendencies, we can't trust a word he says. Perhaps Weakland's letters from 1996 and 1997 are an attempt to cover his own rear?

Using Weakland as a source to attack Ratzinger...well, I know who I trust.

This reads as a classic NYT hit piece on Benedict, with suggestion and innuendo more than facts with regard to Ratzinger. The only part Rod bothered to quote, the article begins:
"Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys..."

Remember the timeline! But the open makes it sound as if BXVI knew about this from the beginning.

"The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal."

What's quoted in the article does NOT show that; it shows Weakland's purported concern for such.

"The Vatican’s inaction is not unusual. Only 20 percent of the 3,000 accused priests whose cases went to the church’s doctrinal office between 2001 and 2010 were given full church trials, and only some of those were defrocked, according to a recent interview in an Italian newspaper with Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, the chief internal prosecutor at that office. An additional 10 percent were defrocked immediately. Ten percent left voluntarily. But a majority — 60 percent — faced other “administrative and disciplinary provisions,” Monsignor Scicluna said, like being prohibited from celebrating Mass."

The article is misleading; read the full interview here.

"In 1993, with complaints about Father Murphy landing on his desk, Archbishop Weakland hired a social worker specializing in treating sexual offenders to evaluate him. After four days of interviews, the social worker said that Father Murphy had admitted his acts, had probably molested about 200 boys and felt no remorse."

So why does Weakland wait three years to write Rome? The article is unclear; it continues: "However, it was not until 1996 that Archbishop Weakland tried to have Father Murphy defrocked. The reason, he wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger, was to defuse the anger among the deaf and restore their trust in the church." Does that mean the reason he waited, or the reason he wrote at all?

"With no response from Cardinal Ratzinger..."

I doubt very much that a letter from an American Archbishop went unanswered. At the least, the office itself would prepare a brief letter stating receipt of the correspondence. Does Weakland mean he got nothing, or nothing from Ratzinger personally, or...? These offices get an incredible volume of mail and are severely understaffed, but I cannot believe an Archbishop's letter would go unanswered, save for clerical or postal error. Again, Weakland cannot be trusted, even if the article were clear.

"...Archbishop Weakland wrote a different Vatican office in March 1997 saying the matter was urgent because a lawyer was preparing to sue, the case could become public and “true scandal in the future seems very possible.”

Oh! Now that a lawsuit against the Archdiocese is possible, Weakland gets real concerned. More CYA.

I could go on, but it's apparent to me this is another hit piece directed at Benedict. The Church has and has had problems, problem priests, and problem bishops, and they need to be dealt with, as Benedict is endeavoring to do, but Benedict himself is not among them, in my Protestant opinion.

But one suspects the reason the Catholic Church comes in for such fire is that it's the one institution that hasn't officially surrendered to the project of modernity, unlike many Protestant denominations and unlike many schools, which have rates of abuse as high or higher than the Church.