Pope Benedict Defrocked 384 Priests for Abuse of Minors in Last Two Years

By Vatican Insider
Gerard O’Connell
January 18, 2014

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/benedetto-xvi-benedict-xvi-benedicto-xvi-31348/

The Vatican confirms that 260 priests were defrocked by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 and another 124 in 2012, but the actual number of priests dismissed from the ministry could be higher

BENEDICT XVI

Pope Benedict defrocked 384 priests in the two year period, 2011 and 2012, for the sexual abuse of minors.

The Vatican confirmed the story, first broken by the Associated Press news (AP) news agency on January 17, after earlier denying it.

It confirmed that 260 priests were defrocked or removed from the ministry in 2011 and another 124 priests in the year 2012.

The data is contained in the relevant Yearbook of the Holy See’s Activities for the years in question. The Holy See presented this and other raw data to the UN Committee for the Rights of the Child earlier in the week.

An analysis of the data for 2011 shows that 124 priests were dismissed ‘ex ufficio’, that is forcibly dismissed from the ministry, while another 135 requested dispensations from the priesthood and this was granted.

A similar analysis for 2012 shows that 57 priests were dismissed ‘ex ufficio’, that is forcibly removed from the ministry, while another 67 requested dispensations from the priesthood and were granted this.

All these cases were dealt with by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and its conclusions were confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI in his last two years in office.

The number of priests defrocked in the two year period 2011-2012 is much higher than that for 2008-2008, and sources attribute this rise to the fact that the Vatican introduced new legislation in 2010 allowing for the dismissal of priests by administrative decision and extending the statute of limitations.

Father David Cito, a professor of Canon Law at the Pontifical Holy Cross University in Rome, who has helped the Vatican prosecute priests who abused minors, told AP that the real number of priests removed from the ministry could be much higher since the Yearbook only gives the figures of those cases sent to the Pope, not those decided by diocesan tribunals in different countries.

The Vatican initially denied the AP report that claimed 400 priests had been defrocked by Benedict XVI in the two year period. It did so because it thought the AP figure was based on a misinterpretation of the figure of 418 cases given by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s head of delegation, to the UN Committee in Geneva the previous day. Tomasi told the Committee that 418 cases of abuse of minors by priests had been reported to the Holy See in 2012, (not priests defrocked).

Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman later issued a correction. He did so based on substantial confirmation of the AP data by the former prosecutor of priest abusers at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Bishop Charles Scicluna, who was a member of the Holy See’s delegation that appeared before the UN Committee in Geneva.