Calif. Priest Was Immature, Obsessed By Kids

Even in his seminary days in the early '70s, there were questions about California priest Stephen Kiesle: "He was not grown up. He spent more time with kids than with people his own age. You get suspicious of that. There's something wrong there," says a former Oakland bishop. Still, future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas from the diocese to act on the case, according to a 1985 letter in Latin that bore his signature as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Kiesle pleaded no contest in 1978 to lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two boys. He took a leave of absence, and in 1981 asked the Oakland bishop to be removed from the priesthood. As Kiesle's fate was being weighed in Rome, a glacial process that some say was typical of the time, he returned to volunteer as a youth minister at St. Joseph Church. He was eventually defrocked in 1987, and is now a registered sex offender. (More Stephen Kiesle stories.)