The Vatican was rocked by new revelations today that Pope John Paul II was informed about the priest who molested deaf boys in Wisconsin.

New information has revealed that the Vatican was told about the priest, Fr Lawrence Murphy, in 1995 and not 1996 as the Vatican has previously claimed.

The information came to light in a lawsuit filed against Pope Benedict XVI by lawyer Jeffrey Anderson.

Anderson, who has already brought hundreds of sex abuse cases against the Catholic Church, revealed that one of Murphy's victims had written two letters to the Vatican in 1995 pleading with them to “excommunicate” the priest.

Church officials have said that Murphy, who died in 1998, could have molested as many as 200 children between 1952 and 1974 when he worked at St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis in Wisconsin.

Up until Thursday, the Vatican had claimed that they were only alerted about Murphy in 1996 when Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G Weakland wrote to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI.

The suit against the Pope is seeking to force the Vatican to release its secret files with the name of suspect priests.