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      ST. FRANCIS, Wis. (AP) - Steven Geier says that four times in
the mid-1960s, the Rev. Lawrence Murphy coaxed the then-14-year-old
student into a closet at St. John's School for the Deaf just
outside Milwaukee and molested him, using God to justify his
actions.

      Geier said when he told Murphy what was happening was wrong, the
priest replied, "Oh, yes. God sent me. This is confession."

      Geier, now 59 and living in Madison, was one of about 200 deaf
boys at the school who say they were molested by the late priest
decades ago in a case now creating a scandal for the Vatican and
threatening to ensnare Pope Benedict XVI.

      "Father Murphy put everything into the context of God," Geier
said through a sign-language interpreter Thursday. "I felt like I
was really brainwashed."

      Some allegations became public years ago. But they received
renewed attention this week after documents obtained by The New
York Times showed Murphy was spared a defrocking in the mid-1990s
because he was protected by the Vatican office led by Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger, now the pope.

      The Vatican on Thursday strongly defended its decision not to
defrock Murphy and denounced what it called a campaign to smear the
pope and his aides.

      In recent weeks, Benedict also has come under fire over his
handling of an abuse case against a priest in Germany three decades
ago when he was a cardinal in charge of the Munich Archdiocese.

      In the Milwaukee-area case, Murphy was accused of molesting boys
in the confessional, in dormitories, in closets and during field
trips while working at the school for the deaf from the 1950s
through 1974. Murphy died in 1998 at age 72.

      Geier shook his fist in anger as he talked to The Associated
Press about Murphy.


      "I can't believe (the pope) can be so stupid," Geier said.
"He is supposed to be doing God's work and yet abusing children is
in direct conflict with that. ... Where is God's punishment for
Father Murphy abusing all those boys? Is that kind of behavior
acceptable to God?"

      Arthur Budzinski, 61, said Murphy began abusing him in the early
1960s when, at the age of 12, he asked Murphy to hear his
confession. Instead, Budzinski said, the priest took him into a
closet under the stairs and sexually assaulted him. There were two
other assaults in Murphy's bedroom and Budzinski's bed in his
dormitory room, he said.


      "It seemed like my father would be walking into a trap every
time," said Gigi Budzinski, his 26-year-old daughter who
interpreted his sign language.

      Church and Vatican documents showed that in the mid-1990s, two
Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by Ratzinger to let
them hold a church trial against Murphy.

      However, Ratzinger's deputy at the time decided the alleged
molestation occurred too long ago and said Murphy - then ailing and
elderly - should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating
Mass outside of his diocese, according to the documents.

      Murphy's alleged victims also included at least one teen in a
juvenile detention center in the 1970s.

      Donald Marshall, now 45, said Murphy visited him several times a
week at the center, where he was sent at age 13 for burglary.
Marshall said the abused happened when the priest visited the boy
while he was isolated in a cell after a fight.

      "He was sitting on my bed, reading the Bible to me, and he put
his hand on my knee," Marshall said. "He leaned over and started
kissing me. That's when he tried to put his hand down my pants."

      The Associated Press does not normally identify victims of sex
crimes, but Budzinski, Geier and Marshall allowed their names to be
used.

      One of the documents, written by the Rev. Thomas Brundage of the
Archdiocese of Milwaukee and dated October 1997, said some of
Murphy's assaults began in the confessional, where he began by
asking the boys about their being circumcised. Brundage said at
least 100 boys were involved.

      "Odds are that this situation may very well be the most
horrendous, number-wise, and especially because these are
physically challenged, vulnerable people," Brundage wrote.

      The archdiocese entered mediation in 2004 with a number of
people who claimed to have been victimized by priests. The
archdiocese has paid compensation to Murphy's victims, but
spokeswoman Julie Wolf would not say how much. Through mid-2009,
the archdiocese said, it paid out $28 million to settle allegations
of clergy sexual abuse.


      Budzinski said that when he was 26, he and two others victimized
by Murphy went to police. E. Michael McCann, then the Milwaukee
County district attorney, said his office couldn't file charges
because the six-year statute of limitations had run out.

      The Vatican issued a strong defense of its handling of the case.
The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said there was no
cover-up and denounced what it said was a "clear and despicable
intention" to strike at Benedict "at any cost."

      The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a
statement noting that the Murphy case did not reach the Vatican
until 1996 - some 20 years after Milwaukee church authorities first
learned of the allegations. Lombardi said the absence of more
recent allegations was a factor in the decision not to defrock
Murphy.

      Richmond reported from Madison, Wis. Associated Press writers
Gretchen Ehlke and Carrie Antlfinger in Milwaukee and Nicole
Winfield in Vatican City contributed to this report.

Gallery

Vatican axed trial for Wis. priest accused by deaf boys

Crime, Law and Justice

Steven Geier says that four times in
the mid-1960s, the Rev. Lawrence Murphy coaxed the then-14-year-old
student into a closet at St. John's School for the Deaf just
outside Milwaukee and molested him, using God to justify his
actions.

Deaf school students say Wis. priest abused them

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