1974--That same year he took up residence at his mother’s home near Boulder Junction, Wisconsin,” the statement read. “He was never formally associated as a priest of the Diocese of Superior and was always the responsibility of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.”
Donald Marshall, now 45, said he was 13 or 14 when Murphy assaulted him at a reform school in the north-central Wisconsin town of Irma at the eastern end of the Superior Diocese. Murphy was serving as an unofficial assistant pastor in the area.
Another man wrote to former Superior Bishop Raphael Fliss in 2002 with claims Murphy molested him several times as a young, deaf altar boy in Boulder Junction, where Murphy lived until his death in 1998
The Catholic Diocese of Superior and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee attempted to quietly defrock Murphy in the 1990s, appealing to high-ranking Vatican officials, including those who are now Pope Benedict and his secretary of state, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, according to church documents.
Though the Vatican initially gave permission to proceed, it reversed itself after Murphy wrote to Ratzinger in January 1998, saying he was “now 72 years old [and] repentant of any past sins.”
Alleged abuse continued in Superior Diocese | Superior Telegram | Superior, Wisconsin
