Dispute Over Documents in Catholic Abuse Scandal

The Catholic judge assigned to oversee the church trial of a priest accused of molesting up to 200 deaf boys says he was not ordered to to drop the case even though records indicate he was told to do so. A 1998 letter from the Archbishop at the time to the Vatican says Brundage was instructed to stop the trial. The letter came to light along with other documents in a fraud lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. They show Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, who initially sanctioned the trial decided to discouraged it just after the priest wrote to the Ratzinger, asking that he be able to live out the rest of his life "in the dignity of my priesthood" and, in effect, not face his accusers or the accusations he molested hundreds of children at St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis. The priest died in 1998.