Speak Of The Devil And He Doth Appear!

Frequently I find that I have perfect timing. A couple of hours ago in this post about Pope Ratzinger ignoring a letter from the Milwaukee Archdiocese regarding a pedophile priest named Lawrence Murphy in its midst, I wrote, “I can’t wait to see what convoluted excuse Bill Donohue comes up with to explain away this one.”

It isn’t often that I watch daytime television, but when I just flipped the TV on MSNBC, sure enough, there was Bill Donohue telling David Shuster that the New York Times article never stated for certain that Ratzinger had seen the letters. This, despite the fact that Ratzinger was the head of the Vatican office to which these letters were sent. Donohue then said that not only should we not jump to any conclusions about Ratzinger, but insisted that there be no further investigation into the matter. But as this letter shows, Murphy himself later wrote to Ratzinger personally to ask him for leniency, which apparently means immunity from disciplinary action. Shortly after this correspondence was received by Ratzinger’s office, the Church’s investigation into the allegations against Murphy ceased at the direction of Cardinal Bertone in Ratzinger’s office. Are we to believe that Ratzinger, who headed this department, knew nothing of this horrendous scandal?

Donohue went on to say that “Catholics aren’t stupid,” and that they know that New York Times has a pro-gay, pro-abortion, “agenda.” Uh huh.

He also said that by the time Ratzinger’s office was apprised of the situation, Murphy was a sickly old man and had already committed his crimes.

So? Does this mean Donohue thinks that former Nazi war criminals should get reprieves because their crimes are behind them? Plus, there was no guarantee that Murphy had stopped molesting kids altogether. He should have been defrocked.

At this point we need to seriously ask ourselves whether the pope or the Catholic Church can do anything that will repulse Bill Donohue. My money’s on, “no.”

If I can dig up the video of the interview, I will post it pronto.

- Max