From an article by Erin Allday in today's San Francisco Chronicle, according to Jeffrey Lena -- a Berkeley lawyer for the Vatican -- then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was handling requests to defrock Stephen Kiesle "expeditiously... by the standards of the time" (emphasis mine).
This is response to a 1985 letter signed by Ratzinger cited concerns about the effect that removing the priest would have on "the good of the universal church." (see RandySF's recced diary from yesterday).
According to Mr. Lena, defrocking a priest is an entirely separate process from taking him out of public service and it was up to then Oakland Bishop John Cummins -- not those higher up in the church hierarchy -- to keep Kiesle out of trouble:
"During the entire course of the proceeding the priest remained under the control, authority and care of the local bishop who was responsible to make sure he did no harm, as the canon law provides," Lena said. "The abuse case wasn't transferred to the Vatican at all."
Not surprisingly, not everyone agrees with this assessment:
Lewis Van Blois, an Oakland attorney who represented six child abuse victims of Bay Area priests, said Saturday that the letter wasn't surprising.
"We knew that the church hierarchy, from the bishops up to the cardinals all the way to the Vatican, were part of a pattern of cover-up to protect the priest and the church at the expense of the victims," he said. "Not much was being done to get rid of these abusing priests."
There is also disagreement as to how to interpret a line in the letter from Ratzinger to Cummins, recommending that Kiesle be provided with "as much paternal care as possible,":
Van Blois found it "particulary troubling", and:
"What it means to me and I think to the general public is we've got to protect our own at the expense of past and future sexually abuse children,"
while Lena said
the reference to "paternal care" was a strong statement from Ratzinger that it was the bishop's duty to make sure that Kiesle didn't harm anyone before he could be laicized, or removed from priesthood.
Finally, a brief review of the timeline:
1978 Kiesle pleaded no contest to lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two boys at Our Lady of the Rosary parish in Union City, where he was a teacher and priest.
1978 - 1981 He served three years of probation, and then asked to be removed from the priesthood. Cummins agreed he should leave.
Beginning in 1981, the same year that Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican department responsible for disciplining priests. Cummins wrote multiple letters, requesting Kiesle's removal,
1985 Kiesle began volunteering - without the blessing of the diocese - as a youth minister at St. Joseph's Church in Pinole,
1987 Kiesle defrocked
But that 6 year delay was expeditious, BY THE STANDARDS OF THE TIME...