CNN calls itself “The most trusted name in news.” But how can I trust a network that shows itself to be either incompetent or biased?

Six times during the weekend of Sept. 25 and 26, CNN aired a one-hour special called “What the Pope Knew.”

It was presented as an investigation attempting to show that then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, was somehow complicit in the child sex abuse occurring by priests. “But behind the public apologies and historic meetings is a darker, more complicated story,” says CNN reporter Gary Tuchman, setting the stage for the report.

The facts in the report, along with the facts CNN left out, show Cardinal Ratzinger to be guilty of no misdeed.

Yet CNN needs no more proof to condemn the pope other than that of association. Tuchman: “Coming up, another case of a pedophile priest, with Cardinal Ratzinger’s signature.”

Three of the four cases of priest sex abusers CNN mentions in the report involve Cardinal Ratzinger in that he was contacted by the priest’s local bishop concerning the removal of the offending priest from the clerical state and returning him to the lay state. All three of the priests had already been removed from priestly ministerial assignments, but since Cardinal Ratzinger’s office did not immediately “defrock” the priests, CNN finds Cardinal Ratzinger guilty of being a co-conspirator of child sex abuse.

While CNN speaks of the “defrocking” of priests, the Church uses more precise and accurate terminology when referring to this matter. As a sacrament, a valid ordination is indelible, so it can’t be undone. Thus a priest experiences not the loss of the sacrament, but the loss of the clerical state.

As the Code of Canon Law explains, a priest can be dismissed from the clerical state as a penalty imposed following a canonical trial (Canon 290). A second and separate way a priest can lose the clerical state is by requesting a rescript (a privilege or dispensation granted as a favor) removing him from the clerical state (Canon 290).

Two of the priests in question did not want to be removed from the clerical state, so Cardinal Ratzinger replied to their bishops that in order to proceed with the process a canonical trial would have to be held, the jurisdiction of which at the time fell to the local bishop (Canon 1718). (Note: In 2001, at Cardinal Ratzinger’s request, his Vatican office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gained jurisdiction for canonical trials in cases of priest sex abuse – (Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela, articles 4, 13).

One of the two priests would later agree to request a rescript, which he was granted, while the other priest died two days after his canonical trial was suspended. The third case involved a priest in his late 30s who, after being permanently removed from priestly ministry, decided to request a rescript. Due to a policy at the time which said no priest younger than 40 should be granted a rescript (cf. Normae de dispensatione a sacerdotali coelibatu ad instantiam partis, Oct. 14, 1980), Cardinal Ratzinger’s office did not grant the request immediately. The day before the priest turned 40 his request was granted.

The other case mentioned in CNN’s report involved a priest who was allowed to go to the Archdiocese of Munich for therapy while Cardinal Ratzinger was archbishop there.

According to the Vatican, without the knowledge of Cardinal Ratzinger, the priest was later given a ministerial assignment in the archdiocese.

No one should deny the reality of the crimes committed by priests, the tragic, life changing consequences for the victims, and the hurt and disappointment among the Catholic faithful. An honest and fair reporting of these matters is to be expected. But smear attacks on the pope are just plain unprofessional.

So perhaps the most significant revelation from CNN’s investigation is not what we found out about the pope, but what we found out about CNN: The only sometimes trusted name in news.

Faherty is a Monitor reader and resident of Toms River.