Cardinal Ratzinger and Fr Stephen Kiesle, E D Kain, True Slant, April 9, 2010

Cardinal Ratzinger and Fr. Stephen Kiesle

By E. D. Kain
True/Slant
April 9, 2010

http://trueslant.com/erikkain/2010/04/09/cardinal-ratzinger-and-fr-stephen-kiesle/

Critics of the pope will call the letter recently unearthed by the Associated Press from Cardinal Ratzinger to Bishop John Cummins regarding the defrocking of the confessed child molester Stephen Kiesle a ‘smoking gun’ but I would urge caution from a rush to judgment. (Here is the full text of the letter.)

First of all, it is still not at all clear that Ratzinger was even in charge of defrocking priests accused of child molestation in 1985. Ratzinger’s office did not gain that authority until 2001.

Second of all, it is not at all clear that Ratzinger – in the letter – urged anything but ‘careful consideration, which necessitates a longer period of time.’ Indeed, the priest in question was defrocked two years later – which may seem like a terribly long time, though perhaps not so long if you consider how long it took secular authorities to bring Kiesle to any sort of justice. (For the molestation Kiesle committed in 1995, long after he was defrocked, he was not convicted until 2004 by civil authorities. He is now out of jail and living in Walnut Creek.)

There is no doubt, however, that at the time the Church and its officials moved far too slow in defrocking Kiesle. In the 1980’s the cases of sexual abuse were almost universally badly handled. It appears Cummins wrote to Ratzinger the very same year Ratzinger arrived in Rome. It is not clear whether this case would have been under Ratzinger’s jurisdiction at that time.

One way or another, the letter is a lonely document. It can certainly be construed as damning but that may be because it is but one piece of correspondence among many. There is almost no context. The Associated Press – if it possesses more letters – should release them so that we can get a better picture of what exactly went on. It’s one thing if this was merely a poor procedure, with an overly cautious Church taking far too long to act – and quite another thing if it was an attempt at a cover-up, which seems unlikely given the priest was defrocked two years after this letter was written. For his crimes in 1995, Kiesle waited nine years to see justice. That seems as scandalous as anything reported thus far about Ratzinger’s role in all of this.

One more thing – all reports on this matter repeat the claim that Ratzinger’s office was in charge of disciplining priests accused of sexual abuse in 1985. It bears repeating that this was not the case until 2001.