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VOTF CLAIMS:
According to the [Massachusetts
attorney general’s] Report, Bishop Murphy played a key role in
the failure to protect the children. As a consequence, he has
abdicated his moral authority.
With regard to Bishop William
Murphy, now of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, the report says:
And,
even with undeniable information available to him on the risk of
recidivism, Bishop Murphy continued to place a higher priority
on preventing scandal and providing support to alleged abusers
than on protecting children from sexual abuse. (P.39)
IN
FACT:
The
above statement excerpted from Attorney General Reilly’s
report represents an editorial summary of Bishop Murphy’s
tenure in the Boston Archdiocese, and not a well-supported one.
The attorney general’s report itself offers virtually
no evidence to support this sweeping charge: Bishop Murphy is
treated only in a brief blurb on pages 39 and 40 of the report.
Surely had the Massachusetts attorney general’s office
found any damning information about Bishop Murphy, this would be
the place to publish it—both in the interest of truth and in
the interest of justifying the attorney general’s use of
taxpayer money for his grand jury investigation.
Even
the book Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church,
produced by staff of the Boston Globe, contains nothing
that casts Bishop Murphy in a poor light. Of the few entries in the index for William F. Murphy, only
one is unflattering, and it clearly refers not to Bishop Murphy
but to the Rev. William F. Murphy, Delegate to the Cardinal—a
different person altogether.
In fact, one of the entries even corroborates Bishop
Murphy’s claim to have supervised John Geoghan’s exit from
the priesthood. Even
the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe’s compendium on
the crisis has nothing bad to say about Bishop Murphy.
But VOTF has already made up its mind about him.
VOTF
CLAIMS:
Bishop Murphy misrepresented
his role in the cover-up. In his
“Report to the Diocese – Part one,” (Long Island
Catholic 7/2/03) Bishop Murphy says that a Delegate (at one
time a priest also named William Murphy) was responsible for
handling cases of sex abuse, and that the Delegate reported
directly to the Cardinal. However, the Attorney General’s
Report says that… “Although Cardinal Law delegated
responsibility for handling clergy sexual abuse matters, his
senior managers [i.e. bishops] kept the Cardinal apprised of
such matters either directly or through the Vicar of
Administration, who supervised the ... Delegate.” (P 31)
Bishop Murphy himself became Vicar of Administration in 1993 [to
2001]. (P 38)
IN
FACT:
Yes, Cardinal Law was “apprised of such matters…through
the Vicar of Administration,” as it is stated on p.31 of
Attorney General Reilly’s report.
But this was not the procedure during Bishop Murphy’s
tenure. What VOTF
leaves out is the following, which comes from the very same
paragraph in Reilly’s report:
For the most part, [Cardinal
Law’s] involvement included the review and approval of
recommendations on such matters from his Vicar of
Administration…or after the adoption of the 1993 policy, from
the Review Board.
As
Bishop Murphy said, the 1993 policy was in place when he became
Vicar of Administration. His
comments are not inconsistent with Reilly’s report.
VOTF
CLAIMS:
The
Report also says that the “Delegate ... sometimes discussed
clergy sexual abuse matters directly with the Cardinal, and on
other occasions conveyed information to the Cardinal through
Bishop Murphy.(P 38) The report further says that the Delegate
“…generally kept both the Cardinal and Bishop Murphy
apprised of significant clergy sexual abuse matters.” (P 48)
IN
FACT:
Bishop
Murphy never claimed that he had no knowledge of abuse cases.
In his “Report to the Diocese,” he wrote,
The Vicar General did not
deal with accused priests, except for the specific cases
described below, none of which involved a reassignment to a
pastoral position [emphasis added].
Bishop
Murphy did not issue the blanket denial of involvement that VOTF
suggests. Furthermore, Bishop Murphy writes,
While I was not involved in
handling priests, allegations against them, evaluations of them
or any decision regarding their possible return to pastoral
ministry, Cardinal Law did on occasion ask my counsel or gave me
some specific tasks that dealt with a few of these priests after
they had been removed from pastoral ministry.
One
of the few such instances mentioned in the report is Bishop
Murphy’s role in revoking a Fr. Francis Murphy’s appointment
to a position because he and Cardinal Law “were concerned that
[the abusive priest] could still have contact with children
through his assignment” (Attorney General’s report, p. 64).
In
yet another instance, Bishop Murphy’s interaction with a
priest who had been removed from the ministry is completely to
his credit. Commenting
on his efforts to remove John Geoghan from his position at the
Office of Senior Priests, Bishop Murphy writes:
I met with John Geoghan several times over five or six months
trying to get him to resign. Whether
I cajoled him by reference to family or pressed him with strong
arguments, he kept refusing to respond to that request. With the
Cardinal’s permission, I removed him against his will. By that
point he was living in his family home. Later I worked with the
Cardinal on the petition to the Pope who removed him from the
priesthood in response to our report and request.
VOTF
CLAIMS:
Bishop Murphy abdicated
his duty to protect the children by ignoring the criminal nature
of child abuse. In
denouncing Bishop Murphy’s actions, the Report states:
“The problem was compounded because Bishop Murphy failed to
recognize clergy sexual abuse of children as conduct deserving
an investigation and prosecution by public authorities.
Instead he viewed such crimes committed by priests as conduct
deserving an internal pastoral response.” (P. 39)
IN
FACT:
Until recently the Commonwealth of Massachusetts did not require
clergy to report abuse; and the internal pastoral response was
at the time the norm in all religions.
That notwithstanding, the comments about Bishop Murphy
amount only to bald assertion.
If Attorney General Reilly had specific examples of this
behavior, presumably he would have included them in such a
comprehensive report. However,
the evidence simply is not there.
VOTF
CLAIMS:
Bishop Murphy showed a
regrettable lapse of judgment when he assigned an alleged abuser
to oversee abusers.
In
an apparent lapse of judgment, Bishop Murphy was involved in
having a priest named Melvin Surrette [sic], who had “been
accused himself of sexually abusing children, to be Assistant
Delegate responsible for arranging suitable job placements for
priests found to have engaged in sexual abuse of children.”
(P.38) The Attorney General’s report further comments that,
“The Archdiocese documents relating to Surrette’s [sic]
assignment do not show any consideration of the propriety of
having a man accused of sexually abusing children
significantly involved in finding suitable job placements for
other alleged abusers. Further, there appears to have been no
appreciation of the inherent conflict of interest or
appearance of impropriety in having a priest under
investigation by the Delegate working as Assistant to the
Delegate.”(39)
IN FACT:
Bishop Murphy wrote in his “Report to the Diocese”:
One of the priests, Melvin
Surette, made several proposals to the Cardinal seeking to have
a nonpastoral ministry in the chancery. One of his proposals was
that he would have an office under the supervision of the
Delegate. Working from that office, he would seek out
appropriate job opportunities for priests on leave. Such jobs
would have to be such that there would be no possibility of
contact with minors. The Chancellor and I approved an
expenditure of about $14,000 for him to set up such an office
under the supervision of the delegate. That proposal, to my
memory, never materialized and the money was never spent.
VOTF CLAIMS:
It is our
firm conviction that Bishop Murphy is not meeting the spiritual
and material needs of our Parishioners. Our diocese is suffering
under his rule. We are without a spiritual leader.
Bishop
Murphy has not satisfactorily addressed the needs of the
diocese, especially those of the poor. The Bishop’s
extravagance in the renovation and furnishing of his own lavish
quarters has compounded the problem. The Bishop’s Appeal is
down; Parish collections are down; donations made by Long Island
Voice of the Faithful to Catholic Charities have been returned
by Bishop Murphy because “it is important to maintain a sense
of unity of mission.” Could this be a reason why Mass
attendance is also down? Bishop Murphy’s decisions and
policies have hurt those in need and hindered the ability of the
diocese to raise funds from the laity.
IN
FACT:
Bringing up the bishop’s residence is not only petty; it
relies on the gross distortions of the likes of Newsday’s
Jimmy Breslin. As
for Bishop Murphy’s decision to reject VOTF’s donations:
this is a sound policy. Few
institutions are willing to be bullied by parallel fundraisers
who have strings attached to their money and dubious agendas. Complaints like these seem tacked onto VOTF’s manifesto for
good measure, in case scandal-related accusations against Bishop
Murphy fail.
VOTF
CLAIMS:
Bishop Murphy’s credibility
has been damaged beyond repair.
On numerous occasions, and in statements published in the
Long Island Catholic, Bishop Murphy has downplayed his role in
the Boston cover-up. An objective reading of the Attorney
General’s Report clearly brands our bishop as one of the key
wrong doers.
IN
FACT:
This is a strong statement, and it is totally unfounded.
An objective reading of the Attorney General’s Report
leaves one with the conclusion that Reilly did not have the
evidence to back up his rhetoric about Bishop Murphy. An objective reading of VOTF’s interpretation of the report
only proves that point: why else would VOTF resort to grasping
at straws, misleading logic, and guilt by association?
Furthermore,
Bishop Murphy’s efforts to clean up the mess he inherited when
he became bishop of Rockville Centre were exemplary.
The Diocese’s statement on the Massachusetts Attorney
General’s report puts it well:
What is more relevant to
Long Islanders is Bishop Murphy’s leadership and actions on
issues involving sexual abuse since his appointment to the
Diocese of Rockville Centre in September, 2001. To start, Bishop
Murphy reviewed the files of all priests in the diocese and
removed from ministry anyone who had an allegation of sex abuse
of a minor in his personnel file. He revamped the diocesan
procedures for dealing with sex abuse of minors, established a
hot line for reporting incidents of sexual abuse and appointed a
Pastoral Intervention Team to report allegations to law
enforcement and to work with victims and the priests accused.
All of this was in place more than a month before the bishops
met in Dallas in June 2001.
Bishop
Murphy’s actions in Rockville Centre were swift and
responsible, to say the least.
He reined in the abusive priests who remained undisciplined by his predecessor,
Bishop McGann;
in fact, he removed two priests within two months of his
arrival. Bishop
Murphy was quick to enact policies to protect the people of his diocese.
VOTF CLAIMS:
Bishop Murphy’s continued
presence thwarts the healing our diocese needs. Our diocese is scourged with disunity.
Faithful Catholics are disillusioned. Attendance is down,
contributions are down. We are in a state of disarray. There is
a profound and pervasive distrust for our spiritual leader.
Polls overwhelmingly support his resignation. We desperately
need new leadership.
IN FACT:
Which
polls overwhelmingly support Bishop Murphy’s resignation?
Polls of VOTF members, perhaps; those would hardly be
representative of the Catholic population in general, especially
when the truth is known about Bishop Murphy.
Even so, being a bishop is not a popularity contest; to
subject episcopal tenure to poll results would unnecessarily
politicize the episcopacy.
Who would like to see bishops molding their teachings to
pander like politicians?
VOTF CLAIMS:
Bishop Murphy has contributed
to the American Bishops’ loss of moral authority. In a wider context, Bishop William Murphy,
along with the Bishops of the United States, has lost the moral
high ground that used to give weight to statements concerning
issues such as poverty in our country, war, nuclear weapons and
the death penalty. Whether or not people agreed with the
Bishops’ positions on these issues, the statements were
debated both within and without the Catholic Church and in the
pages of many respected publications. This, unfortunately, seems
no longer to be the case.
IN FACT:
It is notable that VOTF concentrates only on the bishops’
positions on “poverty in our country, war, nuclear weapons and
the death penalty.” They
are all surely issues worthy of the bishops’ attention.
But why no mention of such issues as abortion,
homosexuality, human cloning, or euthanasia?
Indeed, soon after the scandal reached its peak, major
newspapers applauded bishops who spoke out against the war.
At that time, few used the scandal to silence the Church.
However, when the Church recently spoke out on gay
marriage, few could resist telling the Church to mind its own
business. Only then
did commentators claim that the Church should not speak, in
light of the sex abuse scandal.
The fact that VOTF is unconcerned by efforts to silence
the Church on sexual issues is very telling.
William
Donohue’s comments in the August 3 edition of the New York
Times sum up the entire matter succinctly:
"I am not interested in someone's editorial opinion,"
Mr. Donohue said. "I want evidence."
"What we have here is classic McCarthyism, guilt by
association," Mr. Donohue said later in the interview.
"Simply because Bishop Murphy served in Boston, he is
presumed guilty."
More material on Bishop
Murphy, Newsday, and Voice of the Faithful
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