ST. FRANCIS, Wis. — Steven Geier says that four times in the mid-1960s, the Rev. Lawrence Murphy coaxed the then-14-year-old student into a closet at St. John's School for the Deaf just outside Milwaukee and molested him, using God to justify his actions.

Geier said when he told Murphy what was happening was wrong, the priest replied, "Oh, yes. God sent me. This is confession."

Geier, now 59 and living in Madison, was one of about 200 deaf boys at the school who say they were molested by the late priest decades ago in a case now creating a scandal for the Vatican and threatening to ensnare Pope Benedict XVI.

"Father Murphy put everything into the context of God," Geier said through a sign-language interpreter Thursday. "I felt like I was really brainwashed."

Some allegations became public years ago. But they received renewed attention this week after documents obtained by The New York Times showed Murphy was spared a defrocking in the mid-1990s because he was protected by the Vatican office led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now the pope.

The Vatican on Thursday strongly defended its decision not to defrock Murphy and denounced what it called a campaign to smear the pope and his aides.

In recent weeks, Benedict also has come under fire over his handling of an abuse case against a priest in Germany three decades ago when he was a cardinal in charge of the Munich Archdiocese.

In the Milwaukee-area case, Murphy was accused of molesting boys in the confessional, in dormitories, in closets and during field trips while working at the school for the deaf from the 1950s through 1974. Murphy died in 1998 at age 72.

Geier shook his fist in anger as he talked to The Associated Press about Murphy.

"I can't believe (the pope) can be so stupid," Geier said. "He is supposed to be doing God's work and yet abusing children is in direct conflict with that. ... Where is God's punishment for Father Murphy abusing all those boys? Is that kind of behavior acceptable to God?"

Arthur Budzinski, 61, said Murphy began abusing him in the early 1960s when, at the age of 12, he asked Murphy to hear his confession. Instead, Budzinski said, the priest took him into a closet under the stairs and sexually assaulted him. There were two other assaults in Murphy's bedroom and Budzinski's bed in his dormitory room, he said.

"It seemed like my father would be walking into a trap every time," said Gigi Budzinski, his 26-year-old daughter who interpreted his sign language.

Church and Vatican documents showed that in the mid-1990s, two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by Ratzinger to let them hold a church trial against Murphy.

However, Ratzinger's deputy at the time decided the alleged molestation occurred too long ago and said Murphy — then ailing and elderly — should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese, according to the documents.

Murphy's alleged victims also included at least one teen in a juvenile detention center in the 1970s.

Donald Marshall, now 45, said Murphy visited him several times a week at the center, where he was sent at age 13 for burglary. Marshall said the abuse happened when the priest visited the boy while he was isolated in a cell after a fight.

The Associated Press does not normally identify victims of sex crimes, but Budzinski, Geier and Marshall allowed their names to be used.

One of the documents, written by the Rev. Thomas Brundage of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and dated October 1997, said some of Murphy's assaults began in the confessional and at least 100 boys were involved.