By JOHN PATRICK MURPHY
Added: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 00:00:00 UTC

This letter was sent on January 7, and as of yet no reply has been received.

Rev. John Auer
Pastor, St Paul's Catholic Church
Colorado Springs, CO

This morning you ordered me, my wife Mary, our daughter, Lisa, her husband, Jerimy Noon, our granddaughters, Halley, 7, and Lily, 2, together with my younger brother Edward, his wife Rose, her parents Tony and Dottie Brizzolara, two family friends, and our dogs, Mattie and Rascal, to leave the front of St. Paul's where we had peacefully assembled well outside from the front doors, and greeted the parishioners as they came to the Sunday 8 AM mass. Edward and I held posters which showed a photo of us as young boys, about 8 and 10 years old. By then we each had been molested by Leonard Abercrombie. At the time we were altar boys at Pauline Chapel as there was no St. Paul's then, and Eddie had been baptized there, and each of us made our first communion there when Rev. Michael Harrington was the pastor.

Our family passed out a document which was a plea to remember the victims of priests like Abercrombie, and bishops like the Most Reverend Archbishop Urban J. Vehr, who caused Ed, and I, and our brother, Dr. Martin J. Murphy Jr., to be molested. It also asked the churchgoers to call upon you to protect the children in your care, especially to help in the healing of the victims of pedophile priests, as your bishop ordered you to do, according to The Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs web page.

A few years later there was a great campaign to raise money to build St. Paul's next to Pauline Chapel, and our Father and Mother, Martin J. Murphy and Gertrude Murphy, were primary donors who build the church we stood in front of this morning--- the one we were ordered from.

A few years later it was decided to build Pauline Memorial School and in short order it was built. As Edward was a pupil there he passed by a prominently placed photograph of the groundbreaking, honoring the four people who were primarily responsible for building the school, they were, Archbishop Vehr, Rev. Michael Harrington, Charles Tutt, and Martin J. Murphy, Esq. his father.

Our mother's funeral was held there, our children were baptized there, and we were ordered off for the offense of asking good people to think about families like ours, and the families that had 5 of their children kill themselves because they could not bear the pain of what happened to them when a single sexual predator priest came into their young lives. Our pass out documented the murder of 2 men, by a priest, when one of them confronted the priest with the accusation that he had been raping children. It named the priest who has been found to have molested children and remains in active parish ministry. We were there not just for our healing but for those whose lives were taken, who had their trust shattered when they were just young children, although it may have taken a few years to kill them, their lives were taken when they were molested. We were there for today's children and their children and their's. Your church admits that over 5,000 clergy have molested untold numbers of children in their care. We were there because it was where we belonged.

And if things were right with you and your church, you would have been there with us, reaching out to us and helping let your parishioners know which side you, and your bishop were on. Instead of passing out leaflets with us, you called the police on us, when I told you straight out that we were not leaving and that we were standing on property that we paid taxes on, not you. Instead of standing for the children you stood against them and for the church of cover ups that cared not for the children, but protected serial child rapists instead.

Your conduct this morning was crass and disgusting, and highlighted the very facts our literature set forth. Namely, your church is not to be trusted when it comes to children or its claim of care for its victims.

Regretfully,

John Patrick Michael Murphy
January 7, 2007

TAGGED: ABUSE, CHILDREN, RELIGION