The letter, which recently resurfaced during preparations for a planned revision of the Catholic Church’s system of penal law, could have important implications for the pope’s record on child sex abuse.
Known at the time as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and in charge of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, Benedict wrote in February 1988 to the then-head of the Council seeking a “more rapid and simplified procedure” for removing priests found “guilty of grave and scandalous behavior.”
Noting that such dispensations were ordinarily considered favors to the petitioners, Ratzinger argued in the letter that, “for the good of the faithful,” the dispensation should not be granted to the guilty before they had been convicted and penalized with “reduction to the lay state.”
