Mark Silk of Spiritual Politics comprehensivley and dispassionately rebuts the efforts of Michael Sean Winters, who has a longstanding habit of peering down his nose at journalists, to blame the most recent episode in the deepening, widening child rape scandal in the Catholic Church on journalists. He concludes:
In short, on taking charge of the CDF Ratzinger became part of the cover-up regime. Indeed, there was no sign that the CDF was delaying the Kiesle case until he took charge. And the delay continued amidst the huge media commotion over the Gauthe case in Louisiana, the first of the big priest pedophile scandals of our time, which broke in the Spring of 1985. At that time, meanwhile, Ratzinger was bringing the hammer down on theologian Charles Curran (for being soft on sexual ethics) and Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen (in part for his ministry to homosexuals), and preparing a document condemning tolerance of homosexuality (“Pastoral Care of Homosexuals”). So in what would become a familiar two-step, it was the hard line on sexual doctrine, the tolerant understanding for abusive priests.