Murphy's Law

An anonymous commenter brings word of today's latest dispatch from the New York Times involving the latest iteration of the scandals involving pedophile priests, especially the case of Lawrence Murphy, the horrible man who abused and violated as many as 200 young children during his tenure at St. John's School for the Deaf in Milwaukee. You can read the piece here.

Our anonymous commenter, who appears to be based in New York, is quite satisfied that Pope Benedict needs to be run out of town or something:

Looks like you have been misled by Brundage, not the Times. Face the facts. The Vatican made the decision NOT to proceed with a canonical trial, in spite of the fact that Murphy had admittedly raped children in confessionals while performing the sacrament of reconciliation, which is about as grave a canonical transgression as can be imagined. Why anyone would want to carry water for these lying thugs is beyond me. Ratzinger is up to his eyeballs in this and deserves whatever he gets. He had more compassion for an aging paedophile than he ever did for the 200 deaf children who were Murphy's victims and who never got justice, even from the Church. Oh the web we weave...

That's a pretty categorical statement and I'm not sure it holds up to scrutiny. We'll need to take a longer look at the matter and I'll do that later, hopefully this evening. One thing to think about in the interim: based on what we know, Murphy's crimes began as early as 1950 and continued until he left St. John's in 1974. At some point we need to account for the actions of those who were in a position to do something about it, both within the Milwaukee Archdiocese and the City of Milwaukee, during that nearly 25 year period, and in the 20 years following Murphy's departure from St. John's. Blaming Cardinal Ratzinger may fulfill some emotional need for justice, but I'm not convinced that it is justice. More soon.