Ratzinger Wanted Abusers Out, Fast, in 1988

Cdl Ratzinger (now the Pope) was strongly in favor of reducing abuser/priests to lay status, and made it known--very clearly--in 1988.

...Cardinal Ratzinger observed that some of these priests were “guilty of serious and scandalous behavior” and that the Code “provides for the imposition of certain penalties, not excluding the reduction to the lay state.”

“These measures, in the opinion of this Congregation [of the Doctrine of the Faith], should, in some cases, for the good of the faithful, precede the eventual granting of priestly dispensation, which, by its nature, is like a ‘grace,’” Cardinal Ratzinger wrote. “Some ordinaries meet many difficulties” in imposing canonical penalties on such priests because of the “complexity” of the Code’s procedures, Cardinal Ratzinger added, and thus he requested “more rapid and simplified procedures.”

Of course, that would only assist Bishops who actually STARTED proceedings. In other words, it wouldn't have had much effect in Milwaukee.