Brody's Notes... Vatican States Pope Had ‘No Knowledge’ of Transfer

Political Cartoon By Michael Ramirez 

The Los Angeles Times 

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Mar 26 | Responding to an article published today by New York Times Correspondent Rachel Donadio, Vatican spokesman, Monsignor Federico Lombardi, said in a statement, that the article, which revealed that the future pope had been sent a memo relating to the reassignment of a troubled  paedophile priest, “contained no new information.” The Vatican has officially rejected as “speculation” any version of events other than the one it originally put forward to explain what it called the pope’s “non-responsibility” in the matter. Neither the Vatican nor the German archdiocese had previously mentioned in their statements that Cardinal Ratzinger was sent a memo relating to the reassignment of Father Hullermann. In his statement on Friday, Lombardi did not comment directly on the memo.

As the Vatican battles mounting global criticism over its handling of paedophile priests, new revelations by the New York Times over the internal handling of a priest at a Catholic School for Deaf Children who has allegedly  molested over 200 boys has set off a new firestorm of protest and media coverage. Yesterday evening, on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, CBS correspondent Mark Phillips reports on a group of American victims who were sexual abused by a priest & are now protesting to the Vatican, alleging that Pope Benedict XVI facilitated a cover-up while he still a Cardinal and in charge of the Vatican Offices responsible for administrating over these types of cases.