Pope Took Six Years
To Defrock Pedophile Priest
Joseph Ratzinger asked Oakland, The Associated Press was first to report another piece of evidence that puts into question the Vatican's insistence that Pope Benedict XVI took the cases of pedophile priests seriously. Four years after a California priest asked to leave the ministry, his bishop wrote to the cardinal who would become Pope Benedict XVI begging for action. But in a 1985 letter, Cardinal Calif., Bishop John Cummins to "consider the good of the Universal Church" and insisted it was necessary "to submit incidents of this sort to very careful consideration." The priest in question, Stephen Kiesle, had pleaded no contest to misdemeanors involving child molestation in 1978 for tying up and molesting two young boys in a church. But as the Vatican tried to decide his fate, Kiesle began volunteering in the youth ministry at one of his former parishes. He wasn't defrocked until 1987. In 2002, he was charged with 13 counts of child molestation, but most were thrown out due to the statute of limitations. In 2004, Kiesle was sentenced to six years in prison and is now a registered sex offender. In response to the latest allegations, the Vatican insists the letter signed by the pope was taken out of context. The former bishop of Oakland who wrote to the Vatican about Kiesle talks to the New York Times and suggests that if anyone deserves blame it is Benedict's predecessor. So many priests were leaving the priesthood after the Second Vatican Council that Pope John Paul II "really slowed down the process and made it much more delibera
