Benedict XVI, that accusation of “negligence” on pedophile priests and his battle inside the Church – Corriere.it

The accusation of having opaquely handled cases of sexual abuse within the ecclesiastical hierarchy shadowed Joseph Ratzinger for years, even after his election to the papal throne, as did the criticism of not having done enough to bring in court the bishops who had covered them up.

But it was only a year ago that a
official report commissioned

from the Catholic Diocese of Munich has indicated Benedict XVI as responsible for willful negligence at the time when he was archbishop in the Bavarian capital, from 1977 to 1981, in at least four cases of pedophilia, in which he took no action against the priests who abused them. It was the first time that the former pontiff was formally accused not only of failing to act against them, but also of allowing them to continue their ministry without any restrictions and controls.

The report, almost 2000 pages long, was the result of a two-year investigation conducted by the Westpfahl Spilker Wastl law firm. The study identified at least 497 victims of sexual abuse, mostly boys, 60% of whom were between the ages of 6 and 14. They had suffered the harassment and violence of 235 pedophiles, including priests, deacons and lay employees of the Church. The investigators had had access to internal documents of the Bavarian diocese and had listened to dozens of witnesses, including the Pope emeritus, who had expressed himself in a written statement 80 pages long, in which he denied any knowledge of the facts and claimed that he had never participated in meetings in which cases of abuse were discussed: “I did not take part in them,” Benedetto wrote.

But in the press conference to present the report, in January 2022, investigators defined the statement as “not credible”, showing the minutes of a meeting held in January 1980, at which the then bishop was present. In particular, the case of one of the four priests who in January 1980 had been transferred from another diocese to that of Munich to undergo psychotherapy was discussed at the meeting. During the meeting, Joseph Ratzinger said nothing about the specific case, but intervened on other topics. The religious had been authorized by the Bavarian diocese to return to his pastoral work in another parish, where he had continued undisturbed in the abuses. In 1986 he was again accused of sexual abuse and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment, with suspended sentence. When the story broke in 2010, the priest was still on duty.

Benedict’s first reaction when the report was published she had been rather reticent. In the name of the Pope emeritus, Monsignor Gänswein had expressed “disturbance and shame in the face of the abuse of minors committed by religious”, reiterating that Benedict meant his “personal closeness and his prayers for all the victims, some of whom he had met during the his apostolic journeys”. But two weeks later, Benedict admitted in a letter that under his pastoral guidance in Munich “abuses and errors had been committed” and asked for forgiveness. Even though he continued to deny any wrongdoing.

And yet, there is no doubt that Benedict XVI was among the first to acknowledge the damage suffered by the Church from revelations of sexual abuse, covered up for decades, an acknowledgment that culminated in June 2010, when he was the first Pope to ask for forgiveness, promising that the Church would do “everything possible” to stop and prevent the scourge of pedophilia among its ranks. A few weeks earlier in Portugal, Benedict had warned that the greatest danger to the Church “came from sin within her”, not from without, and that “forgiveness is no substitute for justice”.