A man who says he was the victim of an American paedophile priest is bringing a lawsuit¹ against the Pope and the Vatican in a US federal court.

一名美国男子自称自己是某恋童癖牧师的受害者，并在一家联邦法院起诉教皇和梵蒂冈。

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Fr Lawrence Murphy died in 1998 with no official blemish on his record

His lawyers want the Church to release any files it has on abuse cases involving priests.

The alleged³ victim, whose identity has not been disclosed, says he was abused by the late（已故的，最近的） Father Lawrence Murphy.

Fr Murphy is accused of attacking up to 200 children during his 20 years at a school for deaf children in Milwaukee.

He was finally moved from the St John school to another diocese（主教教区） in 1974, but was never prosecuted⁴ or defrocked（解除僧职，剥去法衣） .

A Church trial was opened after the Vatican received a letter from Fr Murphy's bishop⁵ in 1996, but it was not concluded by the time Fr Murphy died in 1998.

The alleged victim's lawyer, Jeff Anderson, says the Vatican has been negligent⁶（疏忽的） . "What we want the Vatican to do is step up to disgorge（被迫交出，吐出） the secrets that they have in their files," he told the BBC.

'Horror'

The victim wrote to the then-Vatican Secretary of State Angelo Sodano in 1995 asking the Pope to excommunicate（逐出教会） Fr Murphy. The BBC has seen copies of the documents submitted to the court.

They include a seven-page letter to Fr Murphy graphically⁷（生动地） describing the alleged abuse and the effect it had on him.

"Do you know that you really ruined my life?" he writes.

The writer also says one boy abused by Fr Murphy later committed suicide. "God must punish you and send you to hell to stay forever," he adds.

The plaintiff（原告） says the Vatican did not reply to his letter, or to a another one sent several months later.

The fact that the alleged abuse was linked to the confessional meant the case should have been referred to the Church's Congregation for the Doctrine⁸ of the Faith (CDF). At the time this body was run by Cardinal⁹ Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.

The CDF says the first it knew about the Murphy case was in 1996.

The lawsuit names the Pope and two cardinals¹⁰（红衣主教） .

Mr Anderson says his client is not seeking money but wants the Church "to fundamentally come clean, to come forth¹¹ with all documents that have evidence of crimes against children for decades".

He adds: "Until and unless all of those things are done, there is a grave and serious problem, and all trails and responsibility for that leads to one place, to the Vatican, to the pontiff（主教，教皇） ."

The Vatican has not responded to the lawsuit so far. In an earlier interview the Pope's spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, told the BBC that Benedict XVI had taken a clear line of transparency.

Last month a Vatican newspaper editorial said media claims that the future Pope had failed to act against Fr Murphy were "ignoble¹²（不光彩的，卑鄙的） ", and that there had been no cover-up.

There has been a wave of allegations that Church authorities in Europe and North and South America failed to deal properly with priests accused of paedophilia（恋童癖） , sometimes just moving them to new parishes where more children were put at risk.