Future Pope cautious about defrocking abusive priest — letters focus 04/13/2010

Future Pope cautious about defrocking abusive priest — letters

focus 04/13/2010 LOS ANGELES — As a senior Vatican official in the 1980s, future Pope Benedict XVI was reluctant to defrock a California priest accused of sexually abusing children, correspondence released by lawyers for the victims appeared to show on Friday. A series of letters released by attorney Jeff Anderson showed repeated misgivings concerning the conduct of priest Stephen Kiesle raised by senior officials from the Oakland diocese during the early 1980s. In a letter sent by Oakland Bishop John Cummins to the Vatican in June 1981, he petitioned authorities to defrock Kiesle, citing a 1978 court case where he had pleaded no contest to abusing six children aged between 11 and 13. A further letter sent by Cummins in February 1982 to then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — who at the time was responsible for enforcing Roman Catholic doctrine and went on to become Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 — again urged Kiesle to be defrocked..... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100413com3.html

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