Pope, following church law, refused to defrock confessed abuser

According to the AP (5/30, Sedensky), when Pope Benedict was simply Cardinal Ratzinger, he once refused to defrock an American priest who had confessed to molesting several children and served time in prison for his crimes. The salacious priest was kept on because he refused to agree to the defrocking; under church law at the time, a priest could only be defrocked if he voluntarily submitted to the proceedings. This case provides one more example of how church officials contribute to the problem of hidden sexual abuse by choosing to follow rigidly technical rules instead of confronting these issues in the open.
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