http://news.yahoo.com/...
Some highlights I found most...revealing. Basically, in `81, Oakland wanted to defrock a pedophile. They asked a certain Cardinal Ratzinger for such authority.
The case then languished for four years at the Vatican before Ratzinger finally wrote to Oakland Bishop John Cummins. It was two more years before Kiesle was removed; during that time he continued to do volunteer work with children through the church.
In the November 1985 letter, Ratzinger says the arguments for removing Kiesle are of "grave significance" but added that such actions required very careful review and more time. He also urged the bishop to provide Kiesle with "as much paternal care as possible" while awaiting the decision, according to a translation for AP by Professor Thomas Habinek, chairman of the University of Southern California Classics Department.
But the future pope also noted that any decision to defrock Kiesle must take into account the "good of the universal church" and the "detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ's faithful, particularly considering the young age." Kiesle was 38 at the time.
That’s not even the worst of it.
"Kiesle had been sentenced in 1978 to three years' probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory."
So this isn’t a case of an alleged pedophile. They wanted to defrock a priest who was on probation for having actually done the deed. Ratzinger sat on the issue for four years (and really, what else do Cardinals do? You have to wonder how he passed the time). But THAT’S not even the worst of it, in my view. This is:
"The press office doesn't believe it is necessary to respond to every single document taken out of context regarding particular legal situations," the Rev. Federico Lombardi said. "It is not strange that there are single documents which have Cardinal Ratzinger's signature."
Is there some Catholic language that sounds much like English, but is not itself the language you and I speak? "It is not strange that there are single documents which have Cardinal Ratzinger’s signature [that recommend not defrocking a priest convicted of tying up and molesting two young boys]." See, because in the English I speak, it would be strange to have such a document with the freakin’ Pope’s signature affixed to it. It would also be disgusting, revolting, maddening, and worthy of his immediate resignation, but among the thing it would be, you’d think strange would be appropriate. Moreover, it appears the document is not itself taken out of context. It’s very much in context, thankyouverymuch, unless "context" has a different meaning than the "context" I’ve come to know in my contemporary English tongue.
And yes, I think it must be "necessary" for the Vatican press office (again, what else are they doing?) to respond to every single document with the Pope’s signature that recommends leaving pedophiles be. This is particularly so when said document suggests we not defrock said priest, for tying up and molesting two young boys, because he himself is only 38. If age is a consideration when it comes to the priest, how in the name of all this is (un)holy is it not much, much more relevant that the two people he tied up and molested were young boys? I mean, if you were his defense counsel, would you bring up the fact that your client was only 38 at the time? Or would you not so much want age to be brought up at the trial, since that opens the door for the prosecution to very neatly and tidily point out that, yes, your client may only have attained the age required of a president three years ago, but that still makes him likely 30 years the senior of two people who, oh wait, he happened to have tied up and molested?
There are religions, and then there are cults. The Catholic Church is neither. It is, by now, a criminal syndicate, run by a man who by rights should be dying in prison. I would make some cute play on words about this situation being a Catholic shanda fur die goy, but of course, as we’ve learned, there is no Catholic Church equivalent. Were there such a thing, they’d have died of shame long before they elevated this vulgar, foul and odious creature to Peter’s seat.