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Pope did not impede defrocking of abuse priest: Vatican
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Pope did not impede defrocking of abuse priest: Vatican
Silvia Aloisi
VATICAN CITY
Sat Apr 10, 2010 3:12pm EDT
Related Video
Letter reignites Vatican row
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The signature from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger on a letter commenting on the defrocking petition for Father Stephen Kiesle, dated November 6, 1985, is shown after its release to Reuters April 9, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Sam Mircovich
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican on Saturday defended Pope Benedict from accusations that, in a previous post as a senior Church official, he tried to impede the defrocking of a California priest who had sexually abused children.
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In a statement, a California-based Vatican lawyer accused the media of a "rush to judgment" and said the case had never been referred to the Vatican as an abuse case but as one of a man who wanted to leave the priesthood.
In a 1985 letter from the Vatican, typed in Latin and translated for The Associated Press, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger told the bishop of Oakland he needed more time "to consider the good of the Universal Church" as he reviewed a request by the man to leave the priesthood.
Vatican lawyer Jeffrey Lena said he could not confirm the authenticity of the letter but indicated that it appeared to be "a form letter typically sent out initially with respect to laicization cases," when men ask to leave the priesthood.
The letter surfaced as the Vatican fights accusations that the pope mishandled cases of abuse of children by priests when he was a bishop in Germany and a Vatican official before his election in 2005.
Lena "denied that the letter reflected then-Cardinal Ratzinger resisting pleas from the bishop to defrock the priest," the statement said.
MEDIA "RUSHING TO JUDGMENT"
"There may be some overstep and rush to judgment going on here," Lena said.
"During the entire course of the proceeding the priest remained under the control, authority and care of the local bishop who was responsible to make sure he did no harm, as the canon (Church) law provides. The abuse case wasn't transferred to the Vatican at all," he said.
Ratzinger wrote in the letter that arguments for Stephen Miller Kiesle to be allowed to leave the priesthood were of "grave significance" but also worried about what "granting the dispensation can provoke with the community of Christ's faithful, particularly regarding the young age of the petitioner."
According to The Associated Press, which first reported the story on Friday, the Kiesle was 38 at the time and had been sentenced in 1978 to three years' probation after pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a church rectory.
Vatican analyst and papal biographer Marco Politi told Reuters the letter "is a serious blow to the position of Cardinal Ratzinger in the 1980s."
"This document reflects what was the general attitude of the Vatican in those years when the main thing was to care about the image of the Church and about a scandal in a parish," he said.
"The only way for the Church leadership to get out of this situation is to open the archives and to tell clearly what went wrong in the 1980s and in the 1990s or what was done when."
According to a letter from the Diocese of Oakland to Ratzinger in 1981, Kiesle had asked to leave the active ministry and the diocese asked Ratzinger to agree that he be "relieved of all the obligations of the priesthood, including celibacy."
Lena said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Ratzinger headed from 1981 until he became pope, did not have competence over abuse cases at the time and was simply "undertaking to determine whether the conditions for laicization were met." Kiesle was eventually defrocked in 1987.
Documents released to Reuters by victims' attorney Jeff Anderson show long delays in responses, the loss of documents at the Vatican and exasperation at the Oakland Diocese.
But Lena said the priest's defrocking was handled "expeditiously, not by modern standards, but by those standards at the time."
"Moreover, while that proceeding was ongoing, there is no known report of the priest having re-offended," Lena said.
(Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; editing by Myra MacDonald)
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Comments
See All Comments (4) | Post Comment
Apr 09, 2010 10:54pm EDT
This is just a continuing pattern of the Vatican trying to present black as white. They used to say that the child molestations were a problem with the American church, but obviously, the problem exists everywhere there are Catholic churches. The Catholic hierarchy’s explanations are an insult, and were they to admit they knew about these things, they undoubtably face hundreds of millions of dollars more in lawsuits.
apollo1981
Report As Abusive
Apr 10, 2010 12:01am EDT
It is just plain outrageous –
Let them be sued for millions more and go bankrupt!!!
Catholic church acts as a mafia protecting their own!
I guess they are really holding fast to
“Catholic church is never wrong” -
nick76_dune
Report As Abusive
Apr 10, 2010 5:47am EDT
Once again, a greedy lawyer sends a document to the media outlets in order to scam the public.
The priest in question was asking a favor…to be released from his vow of celibacy. Why would a convicted pedofile want to be released from a vow to abstain from sex?
Shame on Cardinal Ratzinger for wondering about the prudence of such a move!
And by the way, the AP translation is incorrect. I would suggest that the greedy lawyer provided it since the English waters down the strength of the advice the Cardinal gave to the Bishop concerning “paternal WATCHFULNESS.”
Dandree
Report As Abusive
Apr 10, 2010 3:35pm EDT
Despite the fact that these abusive priests defame the church and religion as a whole, we should still ask “What Would Jesus Do?” and burn them alive in a lake of fire :)
speechfreedomly
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