A nearly 2000-page report examines sexual violence in the diocese of Munich-Freising. In addition to the incumbent Archbishop Reinhard Marx, his predecessor Joseph Ratzinger has to be accused of omissions – and even a false statement.
Joseph Ratzinger is also criticized in the abuse report.
The report on sexual violence, which the Catholic Archdiocese of Munich and Freising commissioned from a Munich law firm in 2020, comprises almost 1,900 pages. This Thursday, the lawyers from Westpfahl Spilker Wastl presented it to the public and the church leadership. It covers the years from 1945 to 2019 and thus the work of six archbishops.
None of the chief shepherds behaved in an exemplary manner when dealing with cases of abuse in the area of the church, not even the incumbent archbishop, Cardinal Reinhard Marx. Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, headed the diocese for almost five years. The report charges him with inappropriate behavior in four cases and a specific false statement. The emeritus pontiff, now 94 years old, disagrees.
Munich Archbishop Reinhard Marx after the presentation of the report.
Inappropriate handling of the matter
Overall, the report reports on at least 497 victims of sexual violence and 235 suspected perpetrators. Most of the victims, around 60 percent, were boys between the ages of eight and 14, and most of the alleged perpetrators were priests or deacons. The verdicts on those primarily responsible, all cardinals, are clear: Post-war Bishop Michael von Faulhaber acted ambivalently overall, but acted incorrectly four times and showed “complete inactivity towards the injured party”. Joseph Wendel, who headed the diocese from 1952 to 1960, acted incorrectly eight times in the opinion of the experts. Under Wendel’s leadership, there was a “disproportionately high number and accumulation of relevant convictions by state courts”.
In the case of Julius Döpfner, the archbishop from 1961 to 1976, the chancellery complains of 14 cases of incorrect action, 22 of them in the case of Friedrich Wetter, who was in office for 26 years from 1982. Reinhard Marx is said to have acted “in three (suspected) cases of (legal) misuse and/or at least inappropriately in the handling of the matter”. The current archbishop has not shown any “decisive action against accused priests” and has relied on the actions of the episcopal ordinariate.
In a brief statement on Thursday afternoon, Marx said he apologized. In the “abuse crisis” there must be an “orientation towards the victims”. The processing of the cases is inseparable from a “change, renewal and reform of the church”. In the coming week, Marx wants to comment in detail on the report and its consequences. In June of last year, Pope Francis rejected a resignation offered by Marx.
Benedict XVI explained in detail
The report is accompanied by personal statements by bishops or vicars general who are still alive, the longest, at 82 pages, comes from the emeritus pope. Benedict XVI according to some of the statements in the report “according to the file situation are wrong”, allegations are incorrect and legal views are questionable. In a specific case he was accused of, he had no knowledge and no suspicion that it could be an “abusive priest”. He, Benedikt, is “glad that to this day there has been a profound change in attitude in terms of attention, classification and dealing with sexual abuse.”
The law firm accuses Joseph Ratzinger of “still mainly using the stereotypes of an alleged lack of knowledge of the facts and the supposed zeitgeist”. Ignorance is also claimed if this “from the point of view of the experts is difficult to reconcile with the documents made available as part of the inspection of the files.” At the entire management level, they “really closed their eyes” to the specific offenses that the conviction of a convicted sex offender was based on.
“Shameful Coldheartedness”
A priest from the diocese of Essen, whom adolescent boys were sexually aroused to, was admitted to the Archdiocese of Munich with Ratzinger’s approval at a meeting of the Ordinariate in early January 1980, where he underwent therapeutic treatment, but soon also practiced pastoral services – and again passed to male adolescents. Ratzinger denies having attended the meeting in question. According to the experts, this statement contradicts the “documented status of the files”.
The federal government’s abuse officer, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig, was shocked in a radio interview on Friday morning by the “shameful cold-heartedness” of those responsible. The churches should not be left alone with dealing with sexual violence. As in sport and in families, the state and federal politics should be more involved.
According to the commissioner, the “Independent Commission for the Study of Child Sexual Abuse” founded in 2016 and based at the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs needs a legal basis. In addition to monitoring and advising, it could make sense if this commission were granted investigative rights. According to Roering, the new federal government must shed its reluctance towards the churches in this regard: “I hope that the shot from Munich was also heard in Berlin.”