In an article in the Times with the title...

..."New Lawsuit Shows Letters to Vatican on Sexual Abuse Earlier Than Previously Thought," it says:

One victim of the priest wrote two letters to the Vatican’s secretary of state in 1995 asking Pope John Paul IIhimself to read his anguished letters and “excommunicate” the priest, the Rev. Lawrence Murphy.

Father Murphy, who died in 1998, admitted to a psychologist hired by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee that he had molested 34 children when he worked at St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis, Wis., from 1952 to 1974. Church officials concluded that there might have been as many as 200 victims.

The Vatican had previously said that the first notice it had about Father Murphy was when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — received a letter about the case in 1996 from Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee.

The letter writer, whose name was excised, is now the unnamed plaintiff in the latest lawsuit filed by Jeffrey Anderson, a lawyer who has brought hundreds of sexual abuse cases against the Roman Catholic Church.

The victim said he never received a response.

If you were the victim of a crime, would you write a letter to the authorities?

To whom it may concern:

This letter is to inform you of a robbery that took place at my home last night. Since many valuables are missing, I would appreciate it if you could look into it at your earliest convenience.

Thank you,

Mr. So-and-so

What were these people thinking?