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Ear to the Ground

Pope Accused of Letting Past Abuse Case Languish

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Posted on Apr 9, 2010
vatican
AP / Luca Bruno

The papal HQ: aerial view of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

Yet another sexual abuse case from the past has come back to haunt the Vatican, and this time, Pope Benedict XVI is being scrutinized for decisions he made about the case in his prior position at the Holy See.

On Friday, The Associated Press released the details of an exchange between then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now the pontiff) and Bishop John Cummins of Oakland, Calif., whose diocese alerted the Vatican in 1981 about a San Francisco Bay area priest who was put on probation in 1978 after being accused of molesting two boys. Turns out it took Ratzinger a little while to respond, and his answer didn’t exactly resolve the matter quickly.  —KA

The Telegraph:

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.

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By melpol, April 10, 2010 at 3:50 pm Link to this comment

The Pope must admit his sins and ask God for forgiveness. If God accepts his plea, the matter should be dropped. If God refuses the Pope should pay his victims reparations.

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By TheHandyman, April 10, 2010 at 3:35 pm Link to this comment

What I want to know is when are we going to stop allowing children to seduce these poor priests? This must be some nefarious plan on the part of Satan to prevent Jesus from returning. We should organize an Inquistion and start bringing all these people who claim to have been sexually molested and intensively and thoroughly interrogating them. Maybe burning a few alterboys at the stake could stop this. If not, then we must kill all the children and save the Church. I’m sure we could get Bush, Cheney, and their friends to head the project. I’m sure that they will find some way of even making a profit off of it!

And make sure everyone is forced to pray to save the Pope, even if we have to give up the Constitution. Nothing is too good for the Pope!

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Leefeller's avatar

By Leefeller, April 9, 2010 at 9:27 pm Link to this comment

Visiting a friends house last weekend who happened to be watching Comedy Centrals South Park. Though I usually do not watch telivision, we happened to watch this program.

South Park seems a strange cartoon about I believe kids with strange sounding voices. Evidently the main character who is supposed to be a fat kid, was making a comment similar to; “does a bear shit in the woods”
, except instead he said;  “Does the Pope make the world safe for Pedophiles”? 

Sometimes, sarcasm can be most biting and accurate.

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By doublestandards/glasshouses, April 9, 2010 at 7:59 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Cover up.  Obstruction of justice.  And we thought Richard Nixon was a bad sort of guy.  Tricky Dickie we hardly knew ye.

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By Jimnp72, April 9, 2010 at 7:04 pm Link to this comment

Why does he not dwJwd and get his sorry spoiled butt where it is needed instead
of sitting in his marble palace pretending to be holy.
His fancy dinner could feed a poor family for an entire day.
as Bob would say, though, he has God on his side.
He might be a pedophile himself, and no surprise at all would there be.

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By Smudge Martens, April 9, 2010 at 6:31 pm Link to this comment

The real criminals are liberal Catholics.

You know them - the ones that won’t shop at Walmart because it exploits its hourly employees and uses Chinese slave labor. But somehow, these liberal Catholics continue to rationalize that even though they don’t agree with the Vatican regarding birth control, gay rights, gender issues, its continuing tradition of anti-Semitic slanders and its systemic obsession of protecting the church at all costs, somehow they just can’t find their way to Jesus via any of the other dozens of Christian dominations.

What will it take for liberal, reasonable, ethical, objective Catholics to leave this sewer of corruption?

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