Marquette theology professor Daniel Maguire says Pope Benedict XVI should resign for his improper handling of sexual abuse cases in Milwaukee and Germany.

Maguire wrote in an online editorial last week that “the pope can only serve the church by resigning,” following a Vatican cover-up of sex abuse crimes by the Rev. Lawrence Murphy, who is believed to have molested about 200 deaf boys over the course of 25 years.

Maguire wrote in the ConsortiumNews.com article that Milwaukee is the new “epicenter of priest sexual crimes against children.”

“The pope is in a difficult position because he is accepting the resignations of priests who seemingly have done the same things he has,” Maguire said in an interview with the Tribune Monday. “Rather than the classic Catholic idea of confession of sins, we are getting a clumsy public relations mess. Again this weekend, the Vatican called the issue ‘gossip.’ Try telling the parents of an abused child that this is gossip.”

Maguire has been no stranger to controversy during his 39 years at Marquette, often drawing criticism for his outspoken views on church teaching. He clashed with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2006 for his pamphlets “The Moderate Roman Catholic Position on Contraception and Abortion” and “A Catholic Defense of Same-Sex Marriage.”

When the pamphlets were published, the university said Maguire’s views didn’t represent its own, while defending Maguire’s rights of academic freedom. The university stands by that position in relation to the editorial.

“Marquette University disagrees with Professor Daniel Maguire’s recent call for the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI,” a university statement released last week said. “On occasion Dr. Maguire has enunciated positions that are not consonant with formal church teaching and with which the university takes issue. However, the university acknowledges Dr. Maguire’s right to comment — both as a tenured professor of theology and as a private citizen.”

Maguire made it clear that he does not speak for Marquette University.

A former priest, Maguire said he left the priesthood in 1969 for personal and professional reasons, wanting to study theology as a layperson so he could more freely speak his mind.

Maguire said he was surprised more theologians have not spoken out on the sex abuse issue, which he acknowledged to be controversial.

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki issued a strong statement defending the pope following a Mass last Tuesday at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, 812 N. Jackson St. He said Benedict XVI has done much for victims of abuse and their families.

Listecki said mistakes with the Murphy case were made by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee from the 1960s through the 1990s — and not by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger or Vatican officials in the late 1990s. He also said the Roman Catholic Church should be grateful for abuse victims coming forward because it has helped bring about change.

Maguire said he is disappointed that church officials continue to use euphemisms like “mistake” to describe crimes and felonies. He said abuse must not be treated as private sins any longer and must be reported and investigated by law authorities.

A new backdrop to the Milwaukee controversy that linked Pope Benedict XVI to the Rev. Lawrence Murphy was struck last week, when the Milwaukee priest who presided as judge over the trial of Murphy began telling his side of the story to the media.

The Rev. Thomas Brundage said it was unlikely that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger ever even saw letters that then-Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland sent to the Vatican in 1996. Weakland wrote two letters about Murphy, who had been known to have molested children during his 1950-’74 tenure at St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis, Wis.

In 1996, Brundage and the archdiocese began to revisit the details of the case, which he described as “sketchy at best,” eventually leading to correspondence between Rome and a council headed by Ratzinger and Weakland.

“To assume that Benedict even read the letters, or was even aware of the case, is somewhat like myself, Thomas Brundage, as an American citizen, writing to a cabinet member of the president, and expecting, for instance, the secretary of state to read my letter and respond to it,” Brundage said in a radio interview last Thursday on KRLA-AM.

Marquette theology professor Daniel Maguire disagreed with that assessment, saying the letters Weakland sent to the Vatican would have been more like letters from the secretary of state to the president.

“There is no way that nobody knew about this,” Maguire said. “When Weakland wrote Ratzinger in 1996 the info was there. An archbishop writing about a major scandal, twice, is not something that would have been overlooked.”