The Roman Catholic Church says that the latest accusations against Pope Benedict XVI are due to poor computer translation of a vital transcript.

The Associated Press and the New York Times, among others, reported that the Pope had failed to discipline a priest from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who sexually abused deaf children.

According to the transcript of a meeting that took place in 1998, Vatican officials working under the Pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, protected Father Lawrence Murphy, ruling that he could not have his status as a priest revoked, a process known in the Church as defrocking.

However, the Vatican's Catholic News Agency claims that the transcript of the relevant meeting was badly translated from its original Italian by an automated computer program.

"An expert translation of that document provides evidence that appears to exonerate Vatican officials accused of wrongdoing in the case," the CNA said.

Key comments were "poorly translated or even excluded," according to the CNA. A proper translation, they claim, reveals that Father Murphy was threatened with penalties including defrocking if he did not show penitence.

Father Thomas Bundage of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee added that the document as used by the NYT was "a very rough translation and the computer certainly cannot distinguish some of the peculiarities of canon law."

The defence has been met with scepticism by some of the Church's critics, however.

Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic cited approvingly a commenter who wrote that "some of the translation wording can be awkward, but the meaning is clear."

04 April 2010