{"id":522559,"date":"2010-04-09T21:33:03","date_gmt":"2010-04-10T01:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c630a53ef0133ec94e742970b"},"modified":"2010-04-09T21:33:03","modified_gmt":"2010-04-10T01:33:03","slug":"the-pope-and-the-priest-abuse-scandal-what-it-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/522559","title":{"rendered":"The Pope and the priest abuse scandal: What it means"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><embed align=\"middle\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" bgcolor=\"#ffffff\" devicefont=\"false\" flashvars=\"&amp;titleAvailable=true&amp;layoutColumns=1&amp;carouselType=horz&amp;playerAvailable=true&amp;searchAvailable=false&amp;singleURL=http:\/\/latimes.vidcms.trb.com\/alfresco\/service\/edge\/content\/12749ddc-00b1-4d3a-8de4-bc95a84d7a56&amp;adZone=news&amp;adServ=trb.latimes&amp;propName=latimes.com&amp;hostURL=http:\/\/www.latimes.com&amp;swfPath=http:\/\/latimes.vid.trb.com\/player\/&amp;omAccount=tribglobal&amp;omnitureServer=latimes.com&amp;autoPlayVideo=false\" height=\"420\" loop=\"true\" menu=\"true\" name=\"PaperVideoTest\" play=\"true\" pluginspage=\"http:\/\/www.macromedia.com\/go\/getflashplayer\" quality=\"high\" salign=\"l\" scale=\"showall\" src=\"http:\/\/latimes.vid.trb.com\/player\/PaperVideoTest.swf\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"600\" wmode=\"opaque\"><\/embed><\/p>\n<p>When he was the church\u2019s chief enforcer of doctrine 25 years ago, Pope Benedict XVI declined to immediately defrock a California priest who admitted to child sexual abuse, saying he needed more time to consider the impact of the case on \u201cthe good of the Universal Church,\u201d according to a letter released Friday. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/imgs.sfgate.com\/c\/pictures\/2005\/04\/20\/mn_vatican_pope_fp113.jpg\" style=\"margin: 11px; float: left; width: 137px; height: 98px;\"><\/img><\/p>\n<p>The 1985 letter to Bishop John Cummins of Oakland is the latest document to shed light on Benedict\u2019s handling of the sexual abuse crisis in his earlier career, when he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and headed the Vatican office that ultimately assumed full responsibility for such cases. <\/p>\n<p>In it, he acknowledges the \u201cgrave significance\u201d of the charges against the priest, Stephen Kiesle, who had pleaded no contest to charges of molesting two boys in 1978. But Ratzinger said he needed more time and information, in part because of the \u201cdetriment that [defrocking] can provoke with the community of Christ\u2019s faithful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\nIt would be another two years before the Vatican relented to the request, which apparently came on Kiesle\u2019s initiative. <\/p>\n<p>In the video above, Times Relgion Writer Mitchell Landsberg look at the letter and its implications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When he was the church\u2019s chief enforcer of doctrine 25 years ago, Pope Benedict XVI declined to immediately defrock a California priest who admitted to child sexual abuse, saying he needed more time to consider the impact of the case on \u201cthe good of the Universal Church,\u201d according to a letter released Friday. The 1985 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4131,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-522559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}