The Vatican’s Watergate: Stephen Kiesle is a Registered Sex Offender in California

And Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) spent years stalling his removal from the priesthood. Here’s the BBC today:

AP says the 1985 correspondence, written in Latin, shows the cardinal saying that Kiesle’s removal would need careful review.

Cardinal Ratzinger urged “as much paternal care as possible” for Kiesle.

Kiesle was sentenced to six years in prison in 2004 after admitting molesting a young girl in 1995.

Kiesle is now 63 and is on the registered sex offenders list in California.

And the BBC also adds this lovely instance of the future Pope’s Hegelian indifference toward the victims of sexual abuse:

Cardinal Ratzinger resisted the defrocking of California priest Stephen Kiesle, a convicted offender, saying [the] “good of the universal Church” needed to be considered.

Oh, and Stephen Kiesle isn’t the only one that Cardinal Ratzinger shielded. Here’s another:

Cardinal Ratzinger allowed a case against Arizona priest Michael Teta to languish at the Vatican for more than a decade despite repeated pleas for his removal.