Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God Page #4

I was kind of surprised,

cos two of the gentlemen in the dorm

loved to argue

and debate anything

and they were quiet

as a church mouse.

With no active students

willing to come forward

the brief investigation ended.

McCann's office said it did not

investigate past claims,

because of the Statute

of Limitations

But Gary, Bob

and Arthur believed

that their charges

were not taken seriously

because McCann and Gardner

were devout Catholics.

Gardner in his commentary

of St John's

We are talking about

the oath of a priest here.

We're not gonna just go

head on to ruining

this man's life.

The DA's office never brought

charges against Murphy,

but at the school,

the matter was not forgotten.

One of the gentlemen in the dorm

had come by the door to my room,

it was about 10.30, 11 at night.

And he said, "We want to

talk to you about Murphy."

You know, that's when they opened up

about some of the stuff.

So I was thinking

I need to try to,

you know, help them

get to the bottom of this.

So I did call the

Archbishop's office

and I just said, "I have some stuff

on the Father Murphy case"

"that I think the Archbishop

needs to hear."

He and I just met alone

and I told him,

"Father Murphy admitted to me

that he is molesting boys,"

I said, "I have dates and times"

and I said, "I'm going to go

to the parents."

Almost immediately,

it was announced

that Father Murphy would leave

St John's for health reasons.

The writer for the Milwaukee

Sentinel who covered the story

included the allegations

against Murphy in her draft.

But the newspaper's editor removed

any mention of sexual abuse.

Terry had just returned

to St John's to teach history

after graduating

from Gallaudet University.

With his new Super 8 camera,

he filmed Murphy's departure.

I remember filming Murphy leaving

and knowing that Murphy

was a paedophile.

The children thought that Murphy was

leaving because of health reasons,

but I knew he was leaving

because he had molested children.

The children lined up

to shake his hand.

And through tears,

Murphy said goodbye to each of them.

Father Fitzgerald started out

as a priest in Boston

and priests come to him

who have sexually offended,

so he knows he needs

to do something.

He formed an order,

the Order of the Paracletes

in order to treat

paedophile priests.

The first Servants of

the Paraclete treatment center

was opened in Jemez Springs,

New Mexico, in 1947.

Father Fitzgerald did not believe

in psychology or counselling.

He favoured spiritual treatment,

hoping that sex offenders

and alcoholics

would find salvation on their knees,

praying for mercy.

But on one point Father Fitzgerald

was absolutely clear -

sexual predators should be defrocked

or hidden from the faithful

behind monastery walls.

He came to the conclusion that

priests who sexually abuse children

are like vipers -

you can never stop them.

The only thing you can do is remove

them from their target population

and make them live a life

of prayer and penance.

He wrote to the Pope,

he constantly wrote to bishops

and he said,

"Look, this is a terrible problem."

"Paedophilia is infesting

lots of seminaries,"

"you've got to do

something about it."

So, he thought,

"Let's get an island!"

"You can't stop them,

but you can contain them."

"Let's get an island

in the Caribbean."

He sent a priest out,

he was looking in Barbados,

he was looking in various islands

and they went ahead and they actually

did begin the process to buy an island.

It was the island of Carriacou,

off the coast of Grenada,

famous for its nutmeg

and beautiful beaches.

The Church put a $5,000

down payment on Carriacou,

but Church superiors overruled the idea

of an island for paedophile priests.

Then, the Church hierarchy

decided to change the policy

of the Paracletes.

Instead of removing priests

from victims,

the centers attempted to

rehabilitate and recirculate them.

From the 50s to the 90s,

the Servants of the Paraclete

spent $80 million

treating more than 2,000 priests

in special centers in Italy, France,

Great Britain, Africa,

South America and the Philippines.

Lawrence Murphy retreated

to his cabin in Boulder Junction,

a small town in northern Wisconsin.

He was assigned to a local church,

St Anne's.

But the parish was not told

anything about Murphy's past.

Murphy continued to abuse

local children.

Back in Milwaukee, Gary Smith

decided to tell his father

about the abuse he suffered

as a teenager.

John Conway did the interpreting

and explained it to my father

and he was very upset.

And that's when my dad

lost his temper

and decided to contact a lawyer.

They decided to file a lawsuit

against the Archdiocese,

the school and Father Murphy.

Nuns from the school

and other supporters of Father

Murphy within the deaf community

began showing up

at Gary's apartment,

pressuring him to drop the lawsuit.

Then, mysteriously,

the matter was settled.

Father Murphy agreed to pay $500

for Gary's legal fees

and St John's offered Gary the sum of

a few thousand dollars for counselling.

The deal was struck after a nun

called Sister Martha Ann visited Gary,

who had no-one to translate for him,

and persuaded Gary to sign

an unusual document

in which he dropped the case

and apologized to the Church.

He, of course, is deaf

and marginality literate.

Not all deaf people are illiterate,

but English is not their language.

They coerced and tricked him

into a settlement.

Despite Gary's apology,

the Church failed to pay

the $5,000 for his therapy

for 20 years.

Father Doyle is an early

whistleblower in the scandal.

He's working for the Papal Nuncio

in Washington,

he's beginning to see some of the

communication about these cases

and is realizing that

it could be a bigger

problem than just..

a couple bad apples,

a bad priest here or there.

He initially tries to work

within Church channels

and he thinks that there's going

to be a response.

When there isn't, he eventually

becomes a public whistleblower.

The attitude from the Vatican was,

"We don't turn our priests in."

"This is our problem,

we take care of it,"

"you don't refer to the civil

authorities"

"when they're committing

felony crimes."

Now, I don't know what

they would have done

if it would have been

a slew of murders.

He has remained in the Church while

being both a critic of the Church

and an expert witness

in lawsuits against the Church.

I first became aware

of the Murphy case

when it became publicly known

and I was asked to evaluate

some of the information.

The Vatican knew that there'd been

prior reports about Murphy,

there was no conspiracy,

but there was something

far worse than a conspiracy.

The very policy of keeping this

absolutely secret,

that was the policy.

And the first regulations to keep

these issues absolutely secret

were issued in 1866 by the Vatican.

Back in the 1980s,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes