AP Article: Vatican Stalls on Defrocking Sex Abusers

AP: Letter shows future Pope Benedict XVI resisted defrocking molester priest in California

By GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press Writer
Excerpt:

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Four years after a California priest and convicted child molester asked to be defrocked, his bishop pleaded with the future Pope Benedict XVI to remove the man from the priesthood. Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger replied, urging caution.

"Consider the good of the Universal Church," Ratzinger wrote in a 1985 letter to Oakland Bishop John Cummins. "It is necessary for this Congregation to submit incidents of this sort to very careful consideration, which necessitates a longer period of time."


Documents obtained by the AP last week revealed similar instances of Vatican stalling in cases involving two Arizona clergy.

In one case, the future pope took over the abuse case of the Rev. Michael Teta of Tucson, Ariz., then let it languish at the Vatican for years despite repeated pleas from the bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood.

In the second, the bishop called Msgr. Robert Trupia a "major risk factor" in a letter to Ratzinger. There is no indication in those files that Ratzinger responded.

The Vatican has called the accusations "absolutely groundless" and said the facts were being misrepresented.

---

Associated Press writers Brooke Donald in Oakland, Eric Gorski in Denver, John Mone in San Diego, Raquel Maria Dillon in Los Angeles and Victor L. Simpson in Rome contributed to this report.