Wis. man says abuse by priest, cover-up caused nightmares, ruined his faith in Catholic church

Wis. man: Abuse by priest ruined faith in church

MILWAUKEE — A Wisconsin man says he lost all faith in the Catholic church after being abused by a priest who’s at the center of a scandal about the way the Vatican has handled reports of abuse by clergy.

Donald Marshall says he was 13 or 14 when the Rev. Lawrence Murphy molested him in a cell at Lincoln Hills School, a juvenile detention center in Irma.

The 45-year-old Marshall says he blocked out the abuse until his adult years, then started having nightmares about the priest. Marshall says he wonders if anything priests told him while he attended church as a youth is true.

Documents show that two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — to let them conduct a church trial against Murphy, but the Vatican ordered the process halted.

Murphy died in 1998.