Evidence from the Associated Press shows that Pope Benedict XVI stalled the removal of a pedophile priest in California.
Citing "the good of the universal church," Benedict, then Joesph Ratzinger, claimed defrocking Rev. Stephen Kiesle "could provoke some scandal among the faithful." Could? Yes it could have, and it could have sent a message to other pedophile, rapist priests. But, it didn't because the Vatican took no action.
It doesn't stop there.
According to the Washington Post "Letters over a five-year span between the Diocese of Oakland and the Vatican -- including a 1985 letter signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- have come to light."
In a letter dated four years after the Oakland diocese recommended defrocking Kiesle, Ratzinger balked at the idea and suggested it might cause a stir in the community of the faithful.
Furthermore, letters from the early 1980s between the Oakland Diocese and the Vatican, and internal diocesan memos, describe Kiesle as immature and unspiritual. The memos say that his supervising clergy were concerned about the "literature" and magazines he was reading, and that he was interested not in the welfare of families and people who were sick. Kiesle's superiors also noted that "his main interest was working with young people."
Oakland officials appealed to the Vatican to remove Kiesle because he had received three years probation in 1978 after he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for molesting two boys. According to an AP translation, Ratzinger's response said Rome needed more time to review the case before making a decision of such "grave significance."
Grave significance? Really. A molestation plea was not grave enough to merit removal?
Ratzinger urged then-Bishop John Cummins to provide Kiesle with "as much paternal care as possible" while awaiting a decision. Ratzinger also said any decision to defrock Kiesle must take into account the "good of the universal church" and the "detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ's faithful, particularly considering the young age."
Cummins, since retired, said he could not remember if the Vatican understood Kiesle's status but also added that "thirty years is a long time." Hell yeah it is long time. The Church was scared, behind the ball, and knew what the pot had brewing.
"The Vatican has been "blaming different bishops and reporters," said Mike Finnegan to the Washington Post, a Minnesota attorney whose firm represented two of Kiesle's victims and won court settlements.
Bob Starbody, 52, of Campbell, Calif., who was one of Kiesle's victims in the early 1970s, said the correspondences make it hard to suppress his anger at church. "I try not be an angry man today," said Starbody, a printing broker who no longer attends Catholic churches. "I've thought often about going back to the church, but then I hear this kind of crap and I don't want to do it." He sued the Oakland diocese in 2005 and won $1.6 million. "I felt like I sued God," he said. "I felt like I was betraying the God I was supposed to worship."
Mr. Starbody, you may have felt that you betrayed God, but you didn't betray anyone. You were betrayed, betrayed by Cardinal Ratzinger and betrayed by a church, a faith, you trusted.
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