By Helen McArdle
Herald Scotland
April 11, 2010
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/world-news/vatican-on-the-defensive-as-pope-is-accused-of-trying-to-keep-paedophile-in-priesthood-1.1019803
The Vatican has defended the Pope against allegations that he tried to prevent the defrocking of a California priest who had sexually abused children.
A Vatican lawyer based in the US state said the claims – which stem from a letter signed by Benedict XVI when he was a senior Vatican official – had been taken out of context.
Jeffrey Lena accused the media of a "rush to judgment" and said the case was not referred to the Vatican because of abuse, but because the man wanted to leave the priesthood.
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| Former California bishop John Cummins with letters from then-Cardinal Ratzinger about Stephen Kiesle |
In a 1985 letter from the Vatican, typed in Latin, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger told the bishop of Oakland: "Consider the good of the Universal Church. It is necessary for this Congregation to submit incidents of this sort to very careful consideration, which necessitates a longer period of time."
Cardinal 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 reports, Kiesle was 38 at the time and had been sentenced in 1978 to three years' probation after pleading guilty to charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a church rectory.
However, Rev Ciro Benedettini, the Vatican spokesman, said the letter showed no attempt at a cover-up. "The then-Cardinal Ratzinger didn't cover up the case, but as the letter clearly shows, made clear the need to study the case with more attention."
The diocese recommended removing Kiesle from the priesthood in 1981, the year Cardinal Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican office that shared responsibility for disciplining paedophile priests. Lena said the letter appeared to be "a form letter typically sent out initially with respect to laicisation 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 as a bishop in Germany and a Vatican official. It constitutes the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican's insistence that he played no role in blocking the removal of paedophile priests.
Lena denied that the letter reflected then-Cardinal Ratzinger resisting pleas from the bishop to defrock the priest.
"During the entire course of the proceedings 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."
But Vatican analyst and papal biographer Marco Politi described the letter as "a serious blow to the position of Cardinal Ratzinger in the 1980s."
He added: "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. 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."
A letter from the Diocese of Oakland to Cardinal Ratzinger in 1981 shows Kiesle asked to leave the active ministry and the diocese asked Cardinal Ratzinger to agree he be "relieved of all the obligations of the priesthood."
Lena said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Cardinal 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 laicisation were met."
Documents released by victims' attorney Jeff Anderson show long delays in responses and the loss of documents at the Vatican. But Lena said the priest's defrocking was handled "expeditiously, not by modern standards, but by those standards at the time."
The Catholic Church has been hit by child abuse scandals in recent years, in Ireland, the US, Germany and Norway.
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