PEDOCRIMINALITY – A report commissioned by the Church puts Pope Benedict XVI in the wrong. Its authors charge it with inaction in the face of pedophile priests. The retired pope rejects these accusations.
The editorial staff of LCI –
If he denies his responsibility en bloc, a report commissioned by the Church pinpoints him. Lawyers from Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW), who drafted it, accuse former Pope Benedict XVI of not lifting a finger to prevent priests from committing child sexual abuse in the German archbishopric that he was leading in the 80s.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before he became pope, took no action to remove four clergymen suspected of child sexual abuse, they claim.
A pope in the dark despite the headlines
In a statement sent to lawyers, the 94-year-old pope emeritus, who has lived in seclusion in the Vatican since his resignation in 2013, rejects “strictly” any responsibility, a position that the experts do not judge “not credible”, said lawyer Martin Pusch. Because in two cases, they were members of the clergy who had committed several assaults attested, including by the courts, he underlines. The two priests remained within the Church and nothing was done.
The authors say in particular “convinced” that Bishop Ratzinger, who headed the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, was thus aware of the pedophile past of the priest Peter Hullermann. The latter had arrived in 1980 from North Rhine-Westphalia in Bavaria, where he committed abuse for decades without being worried. In 1986, a Bavarian court sentenced him to a suspended prison sentence. But he was transferred to another Bavarian town, where he would have reoffended. It took until 2010 before he was forced into retirement.
Despite the headlines he was the subject of that year, which is also that of the pontificate of Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger denies having known of this priest’s past.
The report’s authors also singled out Cardinal Reinhard Marx, current archbishop of Munich and Freising, for being negligent in two cases of priests suspected of child molestation. It was precisely Cardinal Marx who commissioned the report. He is due to speak briefly on his findings around 3:30 p.m. (GMT).
The frightening phenomenon of cover-ups
Overall, lawyer Marion Wetspfahl denounced “the frightening phenomenon of cover-ups” systematic cases of violence against minors between 1945 and 2019 – period covered by the report – aimed above all “to protect the institution Church”. “Taking into account” the victims “remains insufficient from many points of view, also after 2010”, when the first pedophilia scandals in the German church were revealed, added Martin Pusch. Four years ago, a report revealed that at least 3,677 children had been sexually assaulted since 1946 by more than a thousand German clergy. Most have never been sanctioned.
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This Thursday, the Vatican reiterated its “feeling of shame and remorse” for sexual violence committed by clerics on minors. “The Holy See considers it necessary to give all the necessary attention to the document, the content of which it does not yet know. In the coming days, after its publication, it will become acquainted with it and will be able to study its details properly”, he specified.
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