Father Murphy's Law

Annysa Johnson reports in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the filing of an civil fraud case against our Archdiocese of Milwaukee for sexual abuse of a minor by a priest. The plaintiff in this case was a student at the now-closed St. John School for the Deaf and claims sexual abuse in the early 1970s by Father Lawrence Murphy.

That brings the total to eleven pending fraud cases arising out of sexual abuse of children by priests.

"What this shows is an institutional, deliberate policy of fraud that's existed over the last five decades," Peter Isely of the Midwest chapter of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said in response to the lawsuit.

"This is not a problem of individual priests or bishops, but a fraudulent system constructed around sexual crimes against children," he said.

If our Archdiocese's public responses included something aimed at convincing us there's no way he could be right, I've missed it.