The Church for fear of being cast in a negative light by the media did not discipline Reverend Lawrence Murphy. The logic was that he was of ill health when the decision was made to not excommunicate him, and he was soon to die. Murphy himself wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) saying, "I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood. I ask your kind assistance in this matter." In my opinion, Murphy deserves to be treated with the same amount of 'dignity' with that of what he treated the boys at his school with. The bible does say an eye for an eye, and though two wrongs do not make a right, Murphy deserved to be left without any dignity what so ever. Simply because a person is elderly, does not mean that the crimes they have committed during their lives are forgiven. If Adolf Hitler would be alive today and in his late eighties, the world would not let him 'live out the time he had left in dignity'. A crime is a crime. I place no criticism on the current Pope for his decision, simply on the Catholic Church itself. Reverend Murphy's fate did not belong to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger; it belonged to the justice system of his nation. Murphy's nation, the United States of America, has a Declaration of Independence that declares "... all men are created equal..." If this declaration is to be upheld, Murphy should be treated like a gym teacher suspected of child abuse would be.
If a teacher were accused with child molestation, the police would handle any suspicion. If a teacher was convicted with child abuse of any sort, the said person would experience jail time, and their teaching license would be permanently revoked. Unlike the Catholic Church, in education if a role model is suspected of abuse, they are not simply moved to a separate institution. In America, where all men are created equal, a gym teacher is equal to a reverend, and deserves to be treated and judged equally.
When it comes to child abuse, I believe the French Revolution should have kept more than its influence on today's government. The guillotine, an equal death for every citizen, comes to mind. According to the Justice Department of the United States, child molesters have been known to re-offend as late as twenty years following release into the community. Priest John Geoghan molested over one hundred and thirty boys over a thirty-year period in the United States. Over this thirty-year span, the Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston was well informed about the allegations about Geoghan. Instead of reprimanding him, or turning him over to authorities, the Cardinal simply moved him about from parish to parish, until he was finally defrocked in 1993. He was ultimately convicted in 2002 for molesting a small boy in 1991. Geoghan was sentenced to nine years in prison, which in my opinion is not long enough. As the Justice Department has firmly stated, child molesters have been known to re-offend as late as twenty years after being released back into mainstream society; nine years is not enough. Apparently Joseph L. Druce thought the same. Druce, who was serving a life term at the time, murdered Geoghan, 68, in prison in 2004.
Although the Church now does have a guideline stating that all bishops are to report crimes, this is not enough. Victims say this is insufficient- and it is. This states that all crimes must be reported, but says nothing about allegations. The Church needs to have zero tolerance policies in place, not simply guidelines. We must learn from the past, and be sure that it never repeats itself. Hundreds of children should not need to be victims of a terrible crime for the world to notice. As soon as one child is victimized, the person responsible should be not only disciplined if he or she is a person of great influence in a community or religious institution, but also bear the consequences from the legal system. There is no excuse to take a childhood away- a gym teacher, a parent, a priest- all men are created equal. All children deserve a childhood.
