In a letter, the predecessor of François, aged 94, defends himself from any breach of the time he officiated as Archbishop in Bavaria but asks “forgiveness” to the victims of sexual abuse committed under his mandate.
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At the Vatican Aune, it’s a quick response. Accused less than three weeks ago, by a Bavarian law firm, having taken “bad decisions” in four cases of pedocimate when it was Archbishop of Munich, from 1977 to 1982, the Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI has Public made letter, Tuesday, February 8, accompanied by a note from his lawyers who claims that he has not covered a pedocinal priest. In his letter, the predecessor of François, today aged 94, speaks of the “very big fault” which may have been committed in connection with the management of cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, but without recognize personal liability in the Commission of this fault.
Managed by the German Church to examine how cases of sexual abuse were treated in the diocese of Munich between 1945 and 2019, the Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) Bavarian law firm had made public, On 20 January, a long report that identified 235 perpetrators of sexual assault and 497 victims. He evoked, in particular, the shortcomings of Joseph Ratzinger, the future Benedict XVI, of the time he was archbishop of this diocese. He argued that the prelate had taken “bad decisions” in four cases where he did not intervene while, for two of them, the priests involved had already been sentenced by the German justice.
“deep shame”
The Emeritus Pope written only at the occasion of meetings with victims, he had “learned to understand that we are entrained in this great fault when we neglect it or when we do not face it with the Decision and the necessary responsibility, as it is too often arrived and that it still happens “. He expresses his “deep shame” and his “sincere demand for forgiveness” to the victims before declaring: “I had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church. My pain is all the greater for abuse and mistakes that occurred during my term in different places. “
It is not certain that these general formulas contribute to the serenity of a German church, since 2018, by the revelations on the number of sexual violence, shaken by the decrease in the number of its faithful and engaged in a ambitious but perilous exercise of introspection.
Benedict XVI returns to an episode raised by the report of the law firm. It is on January 15, 1980, a meeting was held a meeting of Peter Hullermann, a priest of the diocese of Essen (North Rhine-Westphalia) accused of pedophilia, transferred to that of Munich to follow a therapy. Joseph Ratzinger has always denied having known the past of this priest who, a few weeks later, would again be in contact with minors and who, after being sentenced in 1986 to eighteen months in prison, then officiated in different parishes until its final suspension, in 2010, at the age of 63.
An error that sows doubt
In the investigators, in the 82-page thesis he had sent to them in response to their questions, the Emeritus Pope claimed not to participate in this meeting, a version deemed “not credible” by the authors of the report. A few days after his publication, on January 24, Georg Gänswein, his personal secretary, had declared that it was by mistake that he had been said that Ratzinger was absent that day. “This error, which has unfortunately checked, has not been intentionally wanted and I hope it is excusable,” says Benedict XVI, who says he has been deeply affected by the fact that this error was used for doubt about [s] one honestly, or even for [l] to present as a liar “.
In their note, Benedict XVI lawyers claim that if he had participated in the January 15, 1980 meeting, Joseph Ratzinger had never been informed that Peter Hullermann “was an abuse” or ” participated in pastoral activities “. They say that in none of the other three priests, he was “aware of sexual abuse or suspicion of sexual abuse”. “As a shopbishop, Cardinal Ratzinger was not involved in concealment of abuse,” they conclude.