Pope Unwilling To Defrock Priest “If 200 Deaf Boys Can't Get It Done”

Story by Christina Mayer 

| Published Mar 30, 2010

The offices of Pope Benedict XVI, amid a deluge of criticism over the handling of child abuse, finally offered an official response to the pope's detractors on Monday.

Allegations of abuse at a Wisconsin school for the deaf four decades ago have recently surfaced, along with numerous other sex scandals aimed at the Catholic clergy. In this particular case, however, reports have suggested that the pope, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was aware of the incidents as early as 10 years ago but was unable or unwilling to defrock the Reverend Lawrence C. Murphy.

A source within the Vatican, who wished to remain unnamed, explained the matter.

“Essentially, if the Reverend couldn’t manage to defrock himself with a bunch of deaf boys, Cardinal Ratzinger — Pope Benedict, now — didn’t think he could help. You know?" the source said. "You pull out a picture of Mother Theresa, grab a passing young boy and go defrock yourself silly. Reverend Lawrence just didn’t have what it took, and the cardinal had his own problems. I’m really not sure why this is such a scandal all of a sudden.”

Much of the present furor revolves around the Reverend Murphy’s continued presence in the Catholic education system, even after he had admitted to the abuse.

“Those events occurred many years ago,” the inside source said. “Reverend Murphy admitted to molesting many of those 200 deaf schoolboys, yes. And His Holiness was warned by a succession of three Milwaukee bishops that the man had been reported for sex abuse. And the guy was a creep who couldn’t even defrock himself properly. But all those things do not necessarily mean that he was unfit to work with children, do they?”

In an open letter to American Catholics, the pontiff’s office addressed calls for the pope’s resignation, saying, “Reverend Murphy has been dead for 12 years. Defrocking postmortem might be acceptable to some people, but Pope Benedict XVI is not one of them. The pope will not resign his office on the basis of this scandal, and would like for everyone to just leave him the purgatory alone.”

The pope himself had made no comment on the scandal at press time, but is expected to address the issue during one of his many Holy Week speeches. Security will be high during the Easter festivities, as the Holy Guard has received a tip that hundreds of protesters are planning to publicly defrock themselves in Vatican City.

“I think these protesters are being rather silly,” said Silvio D’Amato, a mid-level priest in the Holy See. “They can’t just wander the streets defrocking themselves willy-nilly… where’s the order to it? Where is the grand sweeping gesture of rebuke? Where are all the pre-pubescent choir boys?”