The Vatican has denounced allegations that the Pope allowed a paedophile priest in the US to escape justice as a despicable attempt to smear the Pontiff.
The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano denounced what it called an 'ignoble attempt' to smear Pope Benedict and his closest aides 'at all costs' and said that there was no ‘cover-up’.
In the editorial, the paper touted the pope's 'transparency, firmness and severity' in response to cases of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and said: 'There was no cover-up in the case of Father (Lawrence) Murphy.'
The defence came following reports that an investigation of Fr Murphy, accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys, was stopped after an appeal to the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who is now Pope.
Fr Murphy was accused of abusing the children systematically between 1950 and 1974.
The Roman Catholic Church's morals watchdog then headed by the future pope was reportedly alerted twice by the archbishop of Wisconsin of the accusations against Fr Murphy.
Cardinal Ratzinger did not respond to the letters and a secret canonical trial authorised by his deputy was halted after Fr Murphy wrote a pleading letter to the future pope, The New York Times said, citing documents provided by victims' lawyers.
The Vatican said yesterday that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith chaired by Cardinal Ratzinger had suggested 'restricting' Fr Murphy's public functions and 'requiring (him to) accept full responsibility for the gravity of his acts.'
Its rationale was that 'Father Murphy was elderly and in very poor health, and that he was living in seclusion and no allegations of abuse had been reported in over 20 years,' Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi added.
He noted that Murphy died in 1998 aged 72, four months after the congregation's instruction.
The editorial confirms that Fr Murphy wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger in 1998 asking him to halt Church legal proceedings against him because of his ill health.
Cardinal Ratzinger's deputy Tarcisio Bertone - now the Vatican number two - responded to the letter by asking the Milwaukee archbishop to 'obtain reparation of the scandal and the reestablishment of justice,' L'Osservatore Romano said.
The 'canonical question' addressed to the congregation, which Cardinal Ratzinger headed from 1981 until 2005, 'was in no way related to a potential civil or criminal procedure against Murphy,' L'Osservatore Romano said.
Pope Benedict has apologised for the 'heinous crime' of child sex abuse by priests, meeting victims in the US and in Australia.
Christine Buckly of child abuse survivors' group the Aislinn Centre has called for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate Pope Benedict's handling of complaints about clergy before he became pope.
‘The only way to clarify this matter is to have an outside third party investigate his role,’ she said.
A French bishop who met the pope last week said yesterday that the pontiff had been deeply affected by the accusations of paedophilia against the Catholic Church.
'He is not being allowed the presumption of innocence: I have confidence in his will to bring clarity,' said Michel Dubost, Bishop of Evry, near Paris.
The new revelation follows months of predator priest scandals in Europe, including Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland, as well as the pope's native Germany.
