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Listen: Milwaukee Scandal Latest Abuse Crisis For Vatican

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The clergy abuse scandal in Europe now includes — for the first time — documents that appear to show top Vatican officials mishandled allegations against a priest.

It is alleged that when he was Cardinal Ratzinger in the 1990s, Pope Benedict chose not to discipline Lawrence Murphy, a Wisconsin priest who allegedly molested up to 200 children at a school for the deaf, which he ran in Milwaukee from 1950 through 1974. Murphy died in 1998.

Related documents from the case appear on the Web site of a Boston-area group that tracks clergy abuse cases in the United States. The group, BishopAccountability.org, is now doing the same thing for claims in Europe.

WBUR spoke with the group's president, Terry McKiernan, and asked him about the significance of the Milwaukee case.

This program aired on March 26, 2010.

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Bob Oakes Senior Correspondent
Bob Oakes was a senior correspondent in the WBUR newsroom, a role he took on in 2021 after nearly three decades hosting WBUR's Morning Edition.

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