Another children molestation case involving pope Benedict
Quote:Family of Deceased Man Molested By Priest as Child Sues Church Under New Law
Lawyers for Bartko's children filed the lawsuit last week in Alameda County Superior Court against the Oakland Diocese for allegedly failing to prevent abuse by the former Rev. Stephen Kiesle that occurred between 1972 and 1975 at St. Joseph's Parish in Pinole, 18 miles northeast of San Francisco.
“They used to call him ‘the pied piper’ because everywhere he went, the kids followed him around,” attorney Rick Simons said Tuesday of Kiesle. "He once said, ‘There wasn’t a single one I didn’t molest.’”
The Associated Press reported in 2010 that Pope Benedict XVI — when he was then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — resisted pleas from the diocese to defrock Kiesle.
Bartko, a longtime University of Oregon athletic department administrator, said Kiesle had molested him and his best friend during sleepovers at the church rectory when he was a boy.
Kiesle was convicted of lewd conduct in 1978 for tying up and molesting two boys and sentenced to three years probation. He was sentenced to six years in prison in 2004 for molesting a girl.
A 1985 letter in Latin obtained by AP bearing Ratzinger's signature told Bishop John Cummins that removing Kiesle was of “grave significance” and a decision required "very careful consideration, which necessitates a longer period of time.”
Church officials in California wrote at least three times to Ratzinger to check in and Cummins discussed it during a Vatican visit, according to correspondence. A Vatican official at one point said the file may have been lost and suggested resubmitting materials.
Bartko's adult son and daughter have a pending wrongful death claim against the church for their own losses. They said their father's drinking, which began when Kiesle gave him communion wine before molesting him, led to self-medication and alcoholism that caused his liver disease.
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/calif...e/2796173/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
