By Tom Leonard
Telegraph
April 9, 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/7573404/Pope-Benedict-accused-of-delaying-unfrocking-of-sex-abuse-priest.html
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| The Pope during his Easter address in Castelgandolfo. Photo by Alberto Pizzoli |
Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to unfrock an American priest with a record of sexually molesting children, arguing that the negative publicity would damage the church in a 1985 letter bearing his signature.
The 1985 letter typed in Latin and signed by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said any decision to remove Stephen Kiesle, a San Francisco priest, from the priesthood must take into account the “good of the universal church”.
The letter, obtained by the Associated Press news agency, could provide the first direct evidence to undermine the Vatican’s insistence that the Pope was never involved in blocking the removal of paedophile priests during his two decades as head of the Catholic Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department that deals with sex abuse cases.
The Pope has already been accused of failing to act on accusations of abuse in previous roles as a cardinal in his native Germany, and in Rome. The Vatican has dismissed these claims as “unfounded insinuations”.
The Vatican refused to comment on the contents of the letter on Friday but a spokesman confirmed that Cardinal Ratzinger’s signature was genuine.
Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, on Friday acknowledged that the Church had lost public trust and reiterated Pope Benedict’s willingness to meet more victims of abuse.
The letter was among years of correspondence between the California diocese of Oakland and the Vatican over the Fr Kiesle’s future.
Kiesle was sentenced in 1978 to three years’ probation after making a plea of no contest to charges of lewd conduct related to tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory.
When his probation ended in 1981, Kiesle asked to leave the priesthood and the diocese supported him, submitting papers to Rome requesting to unfrock him.
It was the same year in which Cardinal Ratzinger took over the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office responsible for disciplining priests.
In his earliest letter to the cardinal, Bishop John Cummins of Oakland warned in 1982 that returning Kiesle to ministry would cause more of a scandal than removing him from the priesthood.
But according to the correspondence, the case languished at the Vatican for four years before the cardinal wrote back to the bishop in 1985.
In his letter, then Cardinal Ratzinger acknowledged the case for removing Kiesle was of “grave significance” but said it required a careful review and more time to consider.
Urging the bishop to provide Kiesle with “as much paternal care as possible” in the meantime, he noted that a decision to unfrock him must take into account the “detriment that granting dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ’s faithful, particularly considering the young age”. Kiesle was 38 at the time.
While Kiesle’s future was being considered, he volunteered as a youth minister as a suburban church.
He eventually left the priesthood in 1987, but continued to volunteer to work with children until an outraged official confronted Bishop Cummins over the situation.
Kiesle was charged in 2002 with 13 counts of child molestation from the 1970s. All but two were thrown out after the US Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a California law extending the statute of limitations.
He pleaded no contest in 2004 to molesting a young girl and was sentenced to six years in state prison.
Bishop Cummins, now retired, said he could not recall writing to the cardinal about the case.
“I wish I did write to Cardinal Ratzinger. I don’t think I was that smart,” he said.
Jason Berry, a US-based Vatican expert and author of two books on the sex abuse which rocked the Catholic Church in the US, said: “I don’t think it’s a smoking gun. I think we have to bear in mind carefully the mindset of the 1980s. Sex abuse by priests was not an issue on many people’s radar screens 25 years ago.
“And the concern that scandals might harm the Church was embedded in the mindset of cardinals.
“I think the big issue is the Pope’s silence today, rather than any mistake he made 25 years ago. Why is he not speaking out, why is he not reacting to the cases that are emerging?"
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