Stephen Kiesle

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Calif. Priest's Victim: 'He Was God'

Four decades later, Stephen Kiesle's victim speaks out

(Newser) - It started with a 7-year-old girl innocently sitting on the lap of the playful "big kid" priest with the purple sneakers, and it quickly turned to sexual abuse that he framed as exorcisms. "He told me I had the devil inside me" as he touched her chest and...

Calif. Priest Was Immature, Obsessed By Kids

Peers were suspicious of Stephen Kiesle from the start

(Newser) - 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....

Benedict Stonewalled on Defrocking Pedophile Priest

AP digs up 25-year-old letter that refutes pope's story

(Newser) - The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a US priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including "the good of the universal church," according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature. The correspondence, obtained by the AP, is the strongest challenge yet to...

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