RNS Digest
c. 2010 Religion News Service

Victims’ group confronts Vatican over abuse

By Francis X. Rocca

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — American victims of clerical sex abuse protested at the Vatican on Thursday (March 25), charging that Pope Benedict XVI had personally mishandled the case of a Wisconsin priest who molested up to 200 deaf boys more than 35 years ago.

“What the pope will not admit is what he knew and the Vatican knew,” said John Pilmaier, Milwaukee leader of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, at an informal press conference a few yards from St. Peter’s Square.

Pilmaier and three other SNAP members sought to draw attention to the case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who was the subject of an article in Thursday’s edition of the New York Times.

Murphy, who died in 1998, resigned in 1974 as director of a Catholic school for the deaf in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, following accusations that he had molested students during his nearly 25 years on the staff.

The priest received no further pastoral assignments, yet continued to work with children. Though allegations against him were apparently reported to the police, Murphy was never prosecuted.

In 1996, then-Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee referred Murphy’s case to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), writing that he had learned only recently that Murphy might have approached some of his victims in the confessional, a violation that would have brought the case under the CDF’s jurisdiction.

The CDF was at that time headed by Pope Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The office’s second in command was then-Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, now a cardinal and Vatican Secretary of State, the Catholic Church’s No. 2 official.

After consulting with Bertone, Wisconsin church officials moved to try Murphy under church law, a process that could have led to his defrocking. But in January 1998, the accused asked Ratzinger to call off the trial.

Stating that he was 72 years old and “in poor health” and had “repented of any of my past transgressions,” Murphy asked to be allowed to “live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood.”

Later that year, Bertone instructed the Wisconsin church authorities to end judicial proceedings against Murphy.

The Vatican’s actions in the Murphy case appear consistent with statements earlier this month by the Catholic official in charge of investigating clerical sex abuse, who told an Italian newspaper that his office has handled 60 per cent of the cases referred to it without resorting to a trial, “above all because of the advanced age of the accused.”

But the SNAP protestors stressed the gravity of Murphy’s crimes, and especially the involvement of the future pope.

“(Benedict) owes it to every survivor and their families to be honest with us and explain what happened behind those walls, what was covered up, and to finally tell us the truth,” Pilmaier said.

A few hours later, the Vatican responded with a front-page article in its official newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, under the headline “No Cover-up.”

Insisting on the “transparency, firmness and severity” of the pope’s approach to clerical sex abuse, the newspaper denounced what it called the media’s “obvious and ignoble intention of striking, at all costs, at Benedict XVI and his closest collaborators.”

Quebec moves to ban veils for Muslim women

By Ron Csillag

TORONTO (RNS) — The province of Quebec has introduced unprecedented legislation that would effectively bar Muslim women from receiving or delivering public services while wearing a niqab, or face-covering veil.

“Two words: Uncovered face,” Quebec Premier Jean Charest told reporters during a press conference in Quebec City on March 24. “The principle is clear.”

According to the draft law, Muslim women’s faces would have to be visible in all publicly funded locations, including government offices, schools, hospitals and daycare centres. Fully veiled women in the niqab or burqa, for example, would not be able to consult a doctor in a hospital or attend classes at public schools or a university.

Public servants may continue to wear religious symbols like a cross, Star of David, turban, skullcap or even a head scarf so long as a person’s face is in full view. The niqab would be banned even for bureaucrats who do not interact with the public.

Charest said the bill was needed to protect identity, security and communication. Montreal Muslim leaders say niqab-wearing women are a tiny minority — perhaps as few as 25.

Shama Naz of Montreal told the Toronto Star that since the law targets Muslims, it is “hypocrisy. A lot of Muslims will think it’s racially oriented. Everybody else goes on wearing whatever they want to express themselves.”

The bill was partly motivated by some high-profile cases in which women were denied services unless they showed their faces. Just this month, a Muslim woman was ejected from a French language class for refusing to uncover her face. She has filed a complaint with Quebec’s human rights commission, charging religious discrimination.

The province will hold public hearings on the draft legislation but it is widely expected to pass.

Indian high court says couples can legally cohabitate

By Achal Narayanan

CHENNAI, India (RNS) — India’s highest court has ruled that unmarried couples have the right to live together and there is nothing illegal in live-in relationships between consenting adults.

“When two adult people want to live together, what is the offence? Living together is a right to life,” a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court in New Delhi said in a March 23 decision.

The judges’ ruling came during a case involving a popular south Indian movie actress, Khushboo Sundar, who was accused of corrupting young minds with her controversial views on premarital sex, virginity and live-in relationships.

The actress, popularly known as Khushboo, appealed to the Supreme Court to quash more than 20 criminal cases filed against her in various courts in the country in 2005 after she allegedly endorsed premarital sex in press interviews. Khushboo had reportedly told one publication that “no educated man would expect his (bride) to be a virgin.”

Khushboo, a Muslim by birth who is married to a leading Hindu filmmaker, appealed to the Supreme Court after the High Court in the southern city of Chennai in 2008 rejected her plea to reject the numerous criminal cases filed against her in the state of Tamil Nadu.

The Supreme Court judges questioned attorneys for some of the complainants and repeatedly said the perceived “immoral activities” could not be branded an offence. “How does it concern you?” they asked. They further said the views expressed by Khushboo were personal.

The judges pointed out that even the Hindu god Lord Krishna had lived with Radha, according to mythology, as cohabiting lovers rather than as man and wife.

© 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.