Three Men Abandon Sexual Abuse Suit Against The Vatican

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Posted on 16th August 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Three Americans who allege they were sexually abused by priests are dropping their landmark lawsuit against the Vatican, according to The Wall Street Journal.

 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703435104575421443951992242.html%3

The attorney for the trio last Monday asked U.S. District Court Judge John Heyburn to dismiss the landmark lawsuit, filed in federal court in Louisville, Ky., in 2004. The lawyer, William McMurray, basically said his clients wouldn’t be able to hold the Holy See in Rome responsible for the priest sex abuse scandal in the United States, because of the “impossible burden” of proof  required by U.S. courts.

A Illinois man has a similar federal suit pending that alleges he was abused by the Rev. Lawrence Murphy at St. John’s School for the Deaf in Francis, outside Milwaukee.  Before he died in 1998 Father Murphy confessed to molesting 200 school boys from 1952 to 1974.  

There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of lawsuits filed by people who allege that they were molested by Catholic priests. But those suits usually name a priest or diocese as defendants, not the Vatican.

The federal litigation involving Father Murphy names Pope Benedict XVI, the Holy See and several top Vatican officials.

Earlier this year the U.S. Supreme Court let a lower court ruling, which said that suits can be filed against the Vatican on certain grounds,  stand. That case stemmed from a lawsuit filed by a man in Portland, Ore., who alleged he was molested when he was a teenager by a priest. 

http://wis-injury.com/blog/2010/07/u-s-supreme-court-lets-sex-abuse-suit-against-vatican-stand.html?preview=true&preview_id=479&preview_nonce=363a4a7017

Pedophile Priest Used Boulder Junction Cottage As Lair To Abuse Boys

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Posted on 5th April 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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A Roman Catholic priest who admitted to molesting more than 200 deaf boys at a school near Milwaukee continued to sexually abuse youths when he was transferred to far northern Wisconsin, according to a story in The New York Times Saturday. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/us/03wisconsin.html?hp

In the latest chapter in the outrageous case of the Rev. Lawrence Murphy, The Times wrote that the pedophile priest used his family’s cottage in Boulder Junction, on Trout Lake in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, as the setting to lure and abuse youths.

The tragedy, and shame, is that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee had sent Father Murphy to northern Wisconsin after learning that he was abusing boys at St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis, outside Milwaukee. The priest was transferred in 1974 to the Diocese of Superior, when he was 48, supposedly to retire.

But based on documents cited by The Times, Father Murphy didn’t retire from being a pedophile. He used his family’s quaint rural lakefront home as the bait to attract boys, where he could then be with them alone and make his sexual advances.

The story quotes Donald Marshall, who said he was in his early teens when he met Father Murphy in the late 1970s. Marshall was in a juvenile detention center, the Lincoln Hills School for Boys, where Father Murphy sometimes acted as a chaplain.

Marshall alleges that the priest molested him, and the now 45-year-old West Allis, Wis., resident has filed suit against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Marshall has served an eight-year term in prison for drunken driving, and has a history of problems with anger and alcohol.

Other men who alleged they were molested by Father Murphy in northern Wisconsin are also quoted in The Times’ piece.

The Times caused a stir last week when it first wrote about Father Murphy’s case. It reported that the bishops in Milwaukee and Superior had tried to get the priest defrocked, but that there efforts were derailed after the Vatican got a letter from Father Murphy seeking leniency.

The Church wasn’t the only one to fail Father Murphy’s victims. Police in Milwaukee were brought allegations about the priest. In Sunday’s story, then-District Attorney E. Michael McCann said that the charges were beyond the Wisconsin’s statute of limitations.