Pope failed to act upon claims of abuse by US priest

TOP Vatican officials, including the future Pope Benedict XVI, did not react to letters about an American priest who molested as many as 200 deaf school children.

This latest scandal to rock the foundations of the Vatican, has been shown in documents posted on The New York Times website.

The documents include a 1996 letter to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then the Vatican’s top doctrinal official and not yet Pope, showing he was informed of the case. But the Vatican did nothing to discipline Lawrence Murphy, an American priest, who worked at St John’s School for the Deaf in Wisconsin from 1950 to 1974.