Another Supposed Pope Benedict Scandal Deflating -Oakland California

(Update) Well Saturday Morning has brought more clarity (not in the NYT ) but in other sources as to what went on here!! It does appear the reporters are confusing things up. I will have another post on this later .

Ok here is the related post The Day After Another Supposed Pope Benedict Scandal Clarity

Perhaps I am too cynical but the I saw the AP headline on this earlier I wondered why they were releasing this on a Friday afternoon as the Holy See starts to shut down .

Father Z has a good fisking of this at AP throwing more spaghetti at Pope Benedict: this time from California . He goes into some detail about the language used.

I have wondered why people are really that concerned with the "defrocking" (a term I hate) issue and Ratzinger in the whole scheme of thing.

The whole "defrocking" or being "laicized" in many of this cases is just the last official action. In the cases we have examined recently we have seen the Priest has been removed from active ministry.

I think I understand why now :

From the above AP report

"Kiesle was ultimately stripped of his priestly powers "

What?

As Father Z has noted " it only "strips" the Church’s permission to use those "powers" as the AP's call them. I think in the reporters minds they must think the Vatican has some power to undo the the Sacramental effects of Ordination by just signing some document!!!

I do agree that the Vatican and perhaps Ratzinger does not understand the PR problem here we are dealing with in this particular case and they allowing the formal decree of dismissal to slowly go along with the others in the food chain.

Again is PR not in the end what we are talking about here and seem concerned about. In this case we are not talking about hiding some abusive priest or shipping him off. We are not talking about a Priest that is still doing Priest things in public ministry. We are talking about making him a formal LAY person according to the law . So in other words if he OFFENDS again technically he is not a Catholic Priest since a document in the mysterious Vatican has been signed making him a LAY person and boy does that not look better in the papers.

Being returned to the Lay State I guess pretty much means he is released from of his vows of celibacy and obedience to the Bishop and yeah he also someone else's problem now.

Now the Vatican views "dispensations" and Dismissals from the Clerical States(even if you want it) as HUGE and not to be taken lightly so as Father Z points the normal slow process started to kick in no doubt. As we see this was changed quite radically in 2001 with sex abusers

Father Z also does a good job in talking about the confusion of DISPENSATION and on the other hand the Dismissal from the Clerical State which are two different things and in which the AP article seems too confuse.

I see here that the Holy See managed to put put some response to a Italian Newspaper.Here it is as translated:

VATICAN CITY, April 9 (Translated from AGI) - The Vatican's deputy vice director, Fr. Ciro Benedettini, told newsmen today that the 1985 letter from Cardinal Ratzinger to the Bishop of Oakland about reducing a priest to the lay state clearly showed he advised "the need to study the case with greater attention". Benedettini also pointed out that in 1985, administrative discipline over priests involved in sex abuse cases was entirely the responsibility of the local bishop.

"The dogged attempts by media to involve Joseph Ratzinger directly in the scandal over pedophile priests continues," he said in an initial reaction to the letter brandished by the Associated Press today from the then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to the then Bishop of Oakland, Mons. Joseph Cummins. Cummins had written the cardinal about the request of a priest accused of pedophile acts to leave the priesthood.

"What the cardinal asked was nothing more than a normal call to prudence in order to examien more clearly what the diocese was proposing," the Vatican official noted, provided that the priest was not returned to pastoral work. But he also pointed out that sex abuse cases were not within the competence of the CDF in 1985, and that there appeared to be a confusion about relieving a priest of his pastoral responsibilities and reducing him to lay state. The first is the responsibility of the local diocese; the second has to be authorized by the Holy See .

I am sure we shall get more details on this but it appears to me there is not a lot to see here. I would be interested to know how the CDF got involved in this Priest's case since it was not the usual route. I suspect this was in different departments such as the Congregation of the Clergy.

Update- Revolution 21 has lets say a view 180 degrees different than I do. So to see the other side see The Vatican today: Homina, homina, homina

Again I have a different take from him. I have a comment that is in the que over there that he should post later. But to sum it up the

The Priest himself wanted a Dispensation or to be "Dismissed From the Clerical State" (it is not clear which we are talking about).

The Vatican knew that or they knew that when they actually found the FILE!!! because it apeears it was lost of in some other department for a while. As we read the news reports the Vatican had to ask that the documents be resubmitted because of trouble finding it.

It was clear to the Vatican that the Priest had been removed from public ministry and was pretty clear he was not going to be put back in.

I agree that these cases should have been segregated from the others where the policy was to slow the formal process of all Dispensations to a crawl because of the reasons Father Z gave.

However again I fail to see the huge issue here and it might be because I am obtuse. I see the issue of why we are putting these cases with the others. Don't get me wrong on that

I thought the main issue was not to hide abusing priests, not to ship them off, not to reinstate them in public ministry, etc etc etc .

However I did not know the ISSUE HAD BECOME the formal decree that puts these folks back in the Lay State as to Church Law. But it appears it has to some. Again maybe I am not getting it. It seems that the only thing that changes is the Priest no longer is bound to his vows of obedience and Celibacy and OH can get married and have Children. GREAT!!!!

Though in reality it is pretty clear he was not being celibate or Obedient anyway. There seems to be a lot of ink spilt on the formal decree and I agree there is really no reason that they cannot move faster. I also agree the Church has lot of Repentance even at the Vatican. If there is a case to be concerned about that has Vatican ties it is that Canadian Scandal!!! that is developing. However since the Cardinal involved is not Ratzinger strangely I think there will be more discussion about this and not that!!

Strange