Photo:  Paul VI and Rev. Gerald Fitzgerald       “The head of a Roman Catholic order that specialized in the treatment of pedophile priests visited with then  Pope Paul VI and recommended removing pedophile priests from active ministry and he strongly urges defrocking repeat offenders”                       AP reports in Baltimore Sun 2010/04  https://www.baltimoresun.com/bs-mtblog-2010-04-vatican_knew-of-clergy-abuse-i-story.html

A letter to Pope Paul VI from Rev. Gerald M.C. Fitzgerald shows “that the Vatican knew, or should have known, about clergy abuse in the U.S. decades ago, said Anthony DeMarco, a plaintiff attorney in Los Angeles who provided the letter.  The accusation comes as plaintiffs in Kentucky are attempting to sue the Vatican for negligence for allegedly failing to alert police of the public about priests who molested children.

Yet the problem was very well-known to Rome well before the 1960’s.  The 1917 Code of Canon Law criminalized sexual abuse of minors.  Five years after this, the Vatican penned a document detailing procedures for handling such cases.

In 1962, that document was updated and has been used in many of the lawsuits by victims against the U.S. diocese and the Vatican itself.”  Baltimore Sun

The copy of the letter from Father Fitzgerald, as it appears below, as it was taken from  Bishops accountability.org    appears to be partially missing. It is written of in other accounts of this story as being four or five pages in length.