Following on from revelations in the US in 2002 and in Ireland in 2009, Catholics feel shock and anger at what has been done. Now the media are pointing the finger of accusation at the man who many believe did more than anyone else to confront and stamp out the problem. Journalist Tim Wallace has been following the case and compiled this special report for The Record…
Media commentators have called them “smoking guns” – documents allegedly
proving the scandal of clerical sex abuse in the Catholic Church goes
all the way to the top, that the Pope had covered up, condoned or looked
the other way when dealing with clerical molesters.
Over the past
five weeks or so, two media organisations – The New York Times
and Associated Press – have made headlines around the world with two
stories each regarding Joseph Ratzinger’s ostensible culpability in
handling, badly, the cases of five different priests – one as as
Archbishop of Munich, four as head of the Sacred Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith.
The last three stories revisit the cases of
four American priests, all of which have been subjected to intense media
scrutiny before. Their resurrection now is no mere coincidence. Two of
the rehashed cases are based on documents fed to reporters by lawyer
Jeff Anderson, who has successfully sued, on behalf of victims of
clerical sex abusers, American dioceses for tens of millions of dollars
and now has his sights set on suing the Vatican as well, following a US
Court of Appeals ruling in early March that a civil suit against the
Pope could proceed. All three stories have echoed, somewhat
uncritically, the line that plaintiff lawyers want to push.
The
most recent story, published by Associated Press on 10 April, has been
described (by AP itself) as “the strongest challenge yet to the
Vatican’s insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the
removal of paedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic
Church’s doctrinal watchdog office”. Reporters from other media
organisations have parroted that assessment. The Times, for example,
suggested the story “undermines, possibly terminally, the Vatican’s
insistence that Benedict played no part in protecting paedophile
priests”.
All very shocking. Except that it’s bunk. It would be more
correct to say this latest “revelation” is the strongest challenge yet
to the above media organisations’ insistence they are in the business of
fair and accurate reporting and that it undermines, possibly
terminally, their claim to having, at least on the matter of religion,
any semblance of informed insight or editorial integrity.
The story
went like this: Joseph Ratzinger, as prefect of the Sacred Congregation
of the Doctrine of the Faith, “had resisted pleas to defrock a
Californian priest who had a record of sexually molesting children”,
citing concerns including “the good of the universal Church” in a 1985
letter bearing his signature.
Stephen Kiesle, ordained in 1972, had
been convicted in 1978 of tying up and molesting two boys in a church
rectory, for which he received a three year suspended sentence and was
ordered to undergo therapy. The request that he be laicised, made to the
Vatican in 1981, was finally granted in 1987.
The problem with the
AP interpretation is that the documents, on closer scrutiny, show
nothing of the sort. Ratzinger had not resisted a plea to "defrock"
Kiesle as a punitive measure for his sex crimes.
The term “defrock”
suggests dismissal, something imposed on a priest involuntarily whereas
the correspondence (given to AP by Anderson) shows the case was
presented to the CDF as a petition for voluntary laicisation, with
Kiesle himself seeking dispensation to be freed from his priestly vows,
including that of celibacy.
This would explain why the CDF, which
was not given responsibility for handling sex abuse cases until 2002,
would have been receiving the petition in the first place: throughout
the 1980s it had jurisdiction over the granting of dispensations from
the priestly vow of celibacy, not with defrocking clerical child
molesters.
While a letter from Kiesle’s Bishop to the Pope, John Paul
II, did itemise Kiesle’s sex crimes, it is unclear from the
correspondence released by Anderson what exact information was conveyed
to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
An internal memo
from the Diocese of Oakland dated 20 December 1983 states the case was
originally sent to Rome on 7 July 1981, yet there is no letter with that
date in the correspondence published by The NY Times. There are,
however, two letters in support of Kiesle’s petition to be freed from
the obligations of the priesthood, addressed to Ratzinger’s predecessor
as prefect of the CDF, Franjo Šeper, who retired in late November 1981
(and died a month later), and they are illuminating in their lack of
emphasis regarding Kiesle’s criminal convictions.
The first, dated 25
April 1981 from the pastor of the parish to which Kiesle had been
assigned as a deacon, mentions Kiesle’s domineering mother and that he
went through with ordination “because of the reverential fear and human
respect” for her. It notes that Kiesle was “a very intelligent,
personable and industrious young man, and yet he lacked maturity and
responsibility and spirituality". It mentions he worked with teenagers
and children: “They liked him and co-operated with him. Yet he acted as
one of them: played ball with with them: took them to outings and shows
and spent time in their homes.”
“I was somewhat concerned, but never
received any unfavourable comments. Only some years after he left did I
learn of some improprieties that were going on while he was here,” the
letter continues. “Before his ordination I spoke with our Ordinary, the
late Bishop Begin, that I was concerned about the literature he was
reading, the magazines he had in his room, and in general his lack of
maturity and spirituality. To me, there were signs of some internal
turmoil and the need to satisfy his nature and share his life with
someone.”
That’s it. No reference whatsoever of Kiesle being accused,
let alone convicted, of molesting multiple children.
The second
letter, dated 8 May 1981, from Kiesle’s pastor, came closer to the ugly
truth – but only just.
Kiesle “was an extremely talented, creative
and bright individual” though also “highly disorganised, irresponsible
in following through with normal tasks, hugely undisciplined and
unmotivated to fulfil large areas of priestly ministry. His main
interest obviously was working with young people. It was with great
difficulty that he related to most adults …”
And then this: “Even
apart from the eventual difficulty that Fr Kiesle had with the law
because of his relationship to young children, there was objective
reason to question his fitness for ministry and certainly his interest
in it. Repeatedly, parishioners came to me expressing their concerns
about him and the quality of his ministry. Fr Kielse is a likeable
person and therefore did not normally anger or upset the parishioners.
What they expressed more was a type of concern for his indifference and
adolescent behaviour.
“While I was away from the parish on a
sabbatical leave Fr Kiesle become involved in questionable relationships
with young children. These incidents did not come to light until after
my return to the parish. I feel confident that the Acta already
possesses a sufficient description of the nature of the difficulties so I
will not elaborate here.”
Given the decidedly opaque language (the
phrase “beating around the bush” springs to mind), is it any wonder
Ratzinger asked for more information?
According to Anderson: “What
these documents demonstrate irrefutably is that Cardinal Ratzinger
himself, in his own hand, not only delayed the removal of this priest
but chose to protect the reputation of the church over the well-being of
the children.”
This makes no sense: Kiesle’s court appearances, as
the letter to the Pope makes clear, had already attracted a great deal
of publicity throughout California. If Ratzinger’s prime motivation was
to protect the reputation of the Church, keeping Kiesle a priest was not
the answer. Clearly, there is more to this story.
One week
before making a hash of the Kiesle story, Associated Press ran a similar
argument up the flag pole in relation to the "defrocking" of two
priests from Tucson, Arizona – Michael Teta and Robert Trupia – though
at least in this instance the defrockings were actually defrockings.
Nonetheless,
AP felt the cases “cast further doubt on the Catholic Church’s
insistence that Pope Benedict XVI played no role in shielding
paedophiles before he became Pope". He was guilty of of allowing the
cases to “languish” for years. According to another plaintiff lawyer,
Lynn Cadigan, who represented two of Teta’s victims: “There’s no doubt
that Ratzinger delayed the laicisation process of dangerous priests who
were deemed satanic by their own Bishop.”
That Bishop, Manual
Moreno, has not disagreed with Cadigan’s assessment, since he has been
conveniently dead since 2006. But it’s worth noting that she and other
lawyers who settled out of court with the diocese of Tuscon in 2002
weren’t seeking at the time to paint him as a heroic local bishop
thwarted by recalcitrant Vatican officials. To his credit, Morano never
sought to shift the blame either and apologised publicly several times
over the last four years of his life for his failings and mistakes in
allowing sexually abusive priests to remain in ministry.
Examination
of correspondence between Moreno and Ratzinger regarding Teta’s case
(available from the Arizona Daily Star’s website) flatly contradict AP’s
interpretation that Ratzinger took it “then let it languish at the
Vatican for years” despite repeated pleas from Moreno that Teta be
removed from the priesthood.
This complete misreading of the facts
seems to be based on the misapprehension that the trial process was
conducted by the Vatican, when in fact it was done by the Tucson
diocese.
According to the AP report: "In a signed letter dated 8
June 1992, Ratzinger advised Moreno he was taking control of the case
… Five years later, no action had been taken.” This is simply untrue.
What Ratzinger advised was that, as the judicial process before Moreno’s
own diocesan tribunal involved an allegation of having committed an act
of solicitation in the confessional, the conduct of that judicial
process had to be pursued in line with the CDF’s "Instructio". Ratzinger
concluded: “When your Diocesan Tribunal will have passed its definitive
sentence in the case in question, we would kindly request that Your
Excellency arrange for a copy of that sentence along with all the acts
of the case to be sent to this Dicastery.”
Five years, on 28 April
1997, that is what Moreno did. It was the Vatican waiting on a result
from the Tucson diocese, not the other way around!
In the case of
Robert Trupia, the AP spin was even more dumbfounding. Moreno had
suspended Trupia in 1992 (not before time: it was about 17 years after
the Archdiocese had been alerted to his molestation of boys). From that
time on, as Moreno’s successor, Bishop Gerald Kicanas, explained to the Arizona
Daily Star, Trupia was not able to present himself as a priest,
wear a clerical collar or perform any ministry.
Trupia’s case fell
under the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Clergy, not
Ratzinger’s department, which at the time only had competence sexual
abuse of minors involving solicitation through the confessional). “Being
a canon lawyer, Robert Trupia used every means possible to delay any
action in his case,” Kicanas said. “The delays in this case were
substantially the result of Robert Trupia’s manipulation of canon law
and not a slow response from the Congregation for the Clergy.”
The
case only came under Ratzinger’s watch in 2001 when Pope John Paul II
transferred responsibility over all matters of the sexual abuse of
minors from the Congregation for the Clergy to the Congregation for the
Doctrine from the Faith.
According to Kicanas, that the case was
closed by 2004 can only be interpreted as CDF having acted
expeditiously, bearing in mind the office, with only a few dozen staff
members, was dealing with a significant number of cases from many
dioceses.
For sheer scope of journalistic ineptitude though, The
New York Times probably takes the biscotti for its expose that,
under Ratzinger, the CDF “declined to defrock a priest who molested as
many as 200 deaf boys” because the highest priority of the Vatican
officials was protecting the Church from scandal”. The newspaper relied
in part on a computer-generated translation of a Vatican document
written in Italian, not to mention on interpretations of documents
actually in English that simply couldn’t be sustained under any level of
scrutiny
The case of Lawrence Murphy is deeply disturbing. Appointed
chaplain of St John’s School for the Deaf in Milwaukee in 1950 and
promoted to its director in 1963, he would later admit to molesting
about two dozen teenage boys during his two-decade tenure at the school,
though the number of victims was likely much higher.
Over three
decades their complaints largely fell on deaf ears – not just of Church
officials, but also of civil authorities. Talk of his sexual misconduct
apparently swirled from at least the mid-1950s, and in the early 1970s
former students formally complained to the police and the office of the
district attorney.
While the civil authorities declined to prosecute
Murphy, to say he got away scot-free is not entirely accurate; In 1974
he was “relieved of all teaching and pastoral duties as they relate to
the students” (as the local Catholic newspaper reported), and then, a
few months later, placed on “temporary sick leave” – leave that remained
permanent. He received no further pastoral assignments and lived in a
house owned by his family outside of the Milwaukee diocese. Nonetheless
his ministry was never formally restricted and he remained in good
public standing, assisting at local parishes in the diocese in which he
lived.
In 1996 the Archbishop of Milwaukee, Rembert Weakland,
decided in the interests of justice and reconciliation (and also,
perhaps, in the face of the threat of civil lawsuits) that more overt
disciplinary action was needed.
He wrote to the CDF in July seeking
guidance. In March 1997, the Secretary of the CDF, Cardinal Tarcisio
Bertone, instructed Weakland to begin a canonical trial.
According to
The New York Times, Cardinal Bertone “halted the process after
Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger protesting that he
should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in
poor health and that the case was beyond the Church’s own statute of
limitations”.
Not so. The correspondence shows only that Bertone
wrote to Weakland in April 1988 and noted that, given Murphy’s
ill-health and the length that had passed since the offence, making the
outcome of a canonical trial uncertain, the Congregation invited
Weakland to give careful consideration to use pastoral measures
(“fraternal correction or rebuke or other means of pastoral solicitude”)
to “retain the reparation of scandal and the restoration of justice.”
The
choice of whether to continue with the canonical trial remained with
Weakland, and the decision to discontinue the trial in August 1998 was
his. A few days later Murphy died. Had he therefore cheated justice?
Only if one doesn’t believe in an afterlife.
Which brings me,
finally, to the very first story in this reverse chronology – that under
Joseph Ratzinger’s watch as Archbishop of Munich his delegation of
administrative responsibilities led to a known sexual abuser, Peter
Hullerman, initially transferred to Ratzinger’s archdiocese for therapy,
being put back into circulation, amongst unsuspecting, trusting
parishioners, going on to molest again.
On this point, I think the
Pope does have good reason to feel chastened. Even if he was completely
unaware of decisions concerning Hullerman, the point is that he was the
archbishop, the buck stopped with him – just as the buck stopped, and
must continue to stop, with the bishops and archbishops charged with
protecting their flock from wolves in shepherds’ clothes.
Which is
the extreme – dare I say perverse – irony of this shabby media-confected
campaign to paint the Pope as a venal, hypocritical criminal.
As
Damian Thompson, the insightful religion blogger London’s Telegraph has
put it: “Here we have the complete rewriting of history.” Earlier in
this decade, newspapers exposed the sad truth that many bishops had kept
pedophile priests in active ministry.
Now they would have us believe
that those bishops were striving to rid the priesthood of the
predators, but the Vatican resisted! “There is a scandal here indeed,"
according to Thompson, "but it’s not the scandal you’re reading about in
the mass media. The scandal is the complete collapse of journalistic
standards in the handling of this story.”
Tim Wallace is a
freelance journalist and editorial consultant. He has worked on the news
desks of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The
Australian Financial Review and The Canberra Times.