This is all well and good, Mary, but your friend Andrew Sullivan didn't tell the whole story, and you have built your whole case on his fallacies. Ratzinger/Benedict did not protect the criminal priest in any way. The priest did his crime, and went to prison. He did not function as a priest after he was convicted.

What Ratzinger/Benedict failed to do, was to follow the schedule and specifications for laicization that Andrew Sullivan demands. Most of the time, laicization has little significance, because the person almost always has stopped functioning as a priest many years before the laicization is finalized. It is important that a sex offender priest has his "faculties" withdrawn by his bishop, so that he is no longer allowed to function as a priest.

But Andrew Sullivan has apparently defined laicization ("defrocking") as the Holy Grail of punishment for sex offender priests, and Mary Garvey apparently believes Mr. Sullivan and his putative expertise in canon law. If Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Garvey seek a Holy Grail, what they should seek is a criminal conviction and a prison sentence for the sex-offender priest. And in this case, the offender was sent to prison, and the issue of laicization is moot.

And Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Garvey are barking up the wrong tree.

-Joe Offer-