NEW YORK
ABC News
NEW YORK, April 21, 2005 -- An investigation into the sexual abuse allegations against a high-ranking priest of the Roman Catholic Church has been reopened, seven years after the formal complaint was first filed with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, according to people familiar with the case.
Ratzinger's office ordered the case against the Rev. Marcial Maciel reopened in December, around the time there was growing speculation Ratzinger was a leading candidate to be the next pope. In fact, a Vatican investigator began taking sworn statements from the alleged victims just two weeks ago in New York, the day Pope John Paul II died, according to sources close to the case.
The men who brought the allegations against Maciel had thought their case was dead, having heard nothing but silence in the seven years since they brought the allegations to the attention of Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
"They knelt and kissed his ring, filing these charges in his tribunal, and after that it was simply stuffed, it was shelved," said Jason Berry, co-author with Gerald Renner of a book on the case, "Vows of Silence."
"This pope is at a crossroads. He has to resolve the Maciel case or it will stalk him like a shadow in the sun."