Retired Pope Benedict XVI has admitted that he did attend a meeting in 1980 at which the transfer of a pedophile priest to his then-diocese was considered, claiming that he wasn't present was due to an editorial error.
On Thursday, the authors of a report on sexual abuse in the Munich archdiocese between 1945 and 2019, which Benedict then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger led from 1977 to 1982, criticized Benedict's handling of four cases during his time as archbishop, saying that his claim he was not present at the meeting was untrue.
Ex-pope Benedict met where pedophile priest discussed
Benedict, who testified in a lengthy written statement, denies any misconduct. In one example, a priest was transferred to Munich to undertake rehabilitation, which was authorized by Ratzinger in 1980.
The priest was permitted to continue his pastoral duties despite the fact that the church claims that the decision was taken without consulting the archbishop by a lower-ranking official. For assaulting a youngster, the priest was given a suspended sentence in 1986.
Benedict's lifelong secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, said in a statement to Germany's KNA Catholic news agency on Monday that the retiring pope wants to explain that he was in fact at the January 1980 meeting of local church authorities in which the priest's relocation to Munich was considered. Benedict, he said, apologises for the error, Fox News reported.
However, according to Gaenswein, the conference did not make a decision on the priest's return to pastoral activity but merely accepted his placement in Munich while he was undergoing treatment.
Benedict is still carefully looking over the report, according to Gaenswein, and will take some time to finish it. He went on to say that the report will include a statement from the former pope, as well as details regarding how the erroneous claim about the encounter was made. The Vatican's in-house Vatican News portal conveyed the remark to KNA, according to Independent.
Pope Benedict XVI admits false statement during probe testimony
According to the statement, the attendants authorized a request for housing for the priest in question while his treatment in Munich. For him, they didn't make a decision on a pastoral assignment.
The priest was permitted to continue his pastoral duties despite the fact that the church claims that the decision was taken without consulting the archbishop by a lower-ranking official. In the statement, Gänswein added that when he finishes analyzing the report, Benedict will explain how the error occurred.
For comment, NBC News has reached out to the Vatican and Gänswein. The Catholic News Agency received a German translation of the announcement from the Vatican's in-house Vatican News portal. Benedict neglected to intervene in four incidents of sexual abuse in Germany's Munich diocese between 1977 and 1982, while he was archbishop of Munich, according to a study issued last Thursday, as per NBC News.
The previous spokesperson for Benedict XVI declined to respond in advance, referring any answer to the archbishop of Munich. Even though he was instrumental for turning around the Vatican's attitude to the matter as a cardinal, Benedict's reputation as pope had already been colored by the global explosion of the sex abuse crisis in 2010.
When Benedict took over at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1982, after his time in Munich, he received a worldwide and direct understanding of the problem's extent. After seeing that bishops throughout the globe were not punishing abusers, but rather relocating them from parish to parish where they might rape again, Ratzinger took the then-revolutionary decision in 2001 to take over the case processing.
From 1982 until Marx took over as archbishop of Munich in 2008, Cardinal Friedrich Wetter was criticized for his treatment of 21 instances. Moreover, Pusch has stated that he is not guilty. Benedict's written replies, which have been censored to black out names, are included in the roughly 1,900-page report, which also includes annexes. It lists at least 497 abuse victims and 235 probable offenders over the years, however the authors admit that there are likely many more.
According to Marx, the "catastrophic" mismanagement of clerical sexual abuse cases by the Catholic Church had led to the church's "dead end" last year, and he had volunteered to resign in an uncommon gesture, according to USA Today.
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