An influential cardinal opened a Vatican symposium on the priesthood Thursday apologising for “unworthy ministers” and the cover-up of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, before an audience that included Pope Francis.

Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet acknowledged that “we are all torn and humbled by these crucial questions that every day question us as members of the Church”, with Francis at his side in the Vatican’s vast Paul VI Hall.

“Should we not rather refrain from talking about the priesthood when the sins and crimes of unworthy ministers are on the front pages of the international press for betraying their commitment or for shamefully covering up?”

A string of recent investigations exposing paedophile priests have been front page news in recent months, exposing the scale of the problem and the decades-long Church cover-up.

Ouellet is a prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, one of the most important functions within the Curia, the government of the Vatican.

He said the symposium was an opportunity to express regret and ask victims for forgiveness after their lives were “destroyed by abusive and criminal behaviour” hidden or treated lightly to protect the institution and perpetrators.

The symposium would be a “painful and yet necessary exercise” of conscience to analyse the historical, cultural and theological causes of what Francis has referred to as “clericalism”, he added.

Ouellet, the main organiser of the three-day symposium, defined it as “abuses of power, spiritual abuses, abuses of conscience, of which sexual abuses are but the tip of the iceberg”.

“This symposium takes note of the clamour and anger of the people of God, so we are here to unite our voices with those who are calling for truth and justice,” he added.

Francis did not mention the subject of abuse, instead sharing what he considered four “pillars” of the priesthood, drawn from his personal experience.

The symposium — which is expected to attract 500 people — comes two days after victims groups in Italy launched an unprecedented campaign to demand an independent investigation into priest abuse, in the wake of similar inquiries in Germany and France.

A report published last month criticised former pope Benedict XVI for turning a blind eye to abusive priests while he was the Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Since becoming pope in 2013, Francis has striven to tackle the decades-long sexual abuse scandals, although many activists against paedophilia insist much more needs to be done.

The Argentine pontiff convened an unprecedented summit on clerical sex abuse in 2019, lifted secrecy rules that hindered investigations of abusing priests, and hardened the punishment of abusers under Vatican law, among other measures.

Source: AFP

Ex-pope Benedict XVI asked for forgiveness Tuesday for clerical child sex abuse committed on his watch, but aides rejected allegations of a cover-up while he was archbishop of Munich.

“I can only express to all the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness,” the 94-year-old said in a letter published by the Vatican.

The letter from the former pontiff — who stepped down in 2013 — was released in response to a German inquiry last month that criticised his handling of cases involving paedophile priests in the 1980s.

“I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church. All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my mandate,” he wrote, without addressing specific cases.

The German investigation accused Benedict of knowingly failing to stop four priests accused of child sex abuse when he was archbishop of Munich between 1977 and 1982.

Benedict, who is in frail health, asked a team of aides to help him respond to the lengthy findings by law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW), charged by the archdiocese of Munich and Freising to examine abuse cases between 1945 and 2019.

The aides insisted in a statement published alongside the letter Tuesday that “as an archbishop, Cardinal Ratzinger was not involved in any cover-up of acts of abuse”, referring to the pope’s birth name, Joseph Ratzinger.

Not aware  

In one case, a now notorious paedophile priest named Peter Hullermann was transferred to Munich from Essen in western Germany where he had been accused of abusing an 11-year-old boy.

Benedict’s team has already admitted to unintentionally giving incorrect information to the report authors when they denied his attendance at a meeting about Hullermann in 1980.

But they denied any decision had been taken at that meeting about reassigning the priest to pastoral duties, and on Tuesday said the abuse had not been discussed.

“In none of the cases analysed by the expert report was Joseph Ratzinger aware of sexual abuse committed or suspicion of sexual abuse committed by priests. The expert report provides no evidence to the contrary,” the statement said.

In his letter dated February 6, the former pope expressed hurt that the “oversight” over his attendance at the 1980 meeting “was used to cast doubt on my truthfulness, and even to label me a liar”.

Benedict, who lives in a former monastery within the Vatican walls, said he was “particularly grateful for the confidence, support and prayer that Pope Francis personally expressed to me”.

The Vatican defended Benedict last month, saying he had battled sexual abuse while pontiff, but Francis has said nothing in public.

Fear and trembling

In his letter, Benedict said that after thanking his supporters, there should follow “a confession” — the Catholic practice of admitting sins and seeking absolution.

He said that every day, he asked himself whether he was guilty of “a most grievous fault”, using the phrase said during confession at Mass.

“In all my meetings… with victims of sexual abuse by priests, I have seen at first hand the effects of a most grievous fault,” he wrote.

“And I have come to understand that we ourselves are drawn into this grievous fault whenever we neglect it or fail to confront it with the necessary decisiveness and responsibility, as too often happened and continues to happen.”

Before becoming pope, Benedict led the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation — once known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition — giving him ultimate responsibility to investigate abuse cases.

In the letter, he made a clear reference to his failing health, saying that “quite soon, I shall find myself before the final judge of my life”.

“As I look back on my long life, I can have great reason for fear and trembling,” he wrote.

But he added that he was nevertheless “of good cheer” as he prepared to “pass confidently through the dark door of death”.

Source: AFP

A potentially explosive report into the handling of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church will on Thursday be published in Germany, with former pope Benedict XVI among those in the spotlight.

The report by law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) will analyse how abuse cases were dealt with in the archdiocese of Munich and Freising between 1945 and 2019.

The Munich archdiocese, which commissioned the report, said it will examine “whether those responsible complied with legal requirements… and acted appropriately in dealing with suspected cases and possible perpetrators”.

Ex-pope Benedict — whose civilian name is Josef Ratzinger — was the archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

During this time, a now notorious paedophile priest named Peter Hullermann was transferred to Munich from Essen in western Germany where he had been accused of abusing an 11-year-old boy.

Hullermann was reassigned to pastoral duties despite his history.

In 1986, by which time Ratzinger had been transferred to the Vatican, he was convicted of molesting more children and given a suspended prison sentence.

Even after the conviction, he continued to work with children for many years and his case is regarded as a pertinent example of the mishandling of abuse by the Church.

Benedict has denied knowing about the priest’s history.

82-page statement

The ex-pope has provided an 82-page statement in response to questions from WSW, according to German media reports.

The pope emeritus “takes the fates of the abuse victims very much to heart” and is fully “in favour of the publication of the Munich report”, his spokesman Georg Gaenswein told the Bild daily.

Benedict, 94, in 2013 became the first pope ever to step down from the role in 600 years and now lives a secluded life in a former convent inside the grounds of the Vatican.

The reformist Catholic group “Wir sind Kirche” (We are Church) called on the ex-pontiff to take responsibility for what happened while he was in charge of the Munich diocese.

“An admission by Ratzinger that through his actions or inactions, knowledge or ignorance, he was personally and professionally complicit in the suffering of many young people would be… an example for many other bishops and responsible persons,” it said in a statement.

Germany’s Catholic Church has been rocked by a string of reports in recent years that have exposed widespread abuse of children by clergymen.

A study commissioned by the German Bishops’ Conference in 2018 concluded that 1,670 clergymen in the country had committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors between 1946 and 2014.

‘Systemic failure’

However, the real number of victims is thought to be much higher.

Another report published last year exposed the scope of abuse committed by priests in Germany’s top diocese of Cologne.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the current archbishop of Munich and Freising, last year offered Pope Francis his resignation over the church’s “institutional and systemic failure” in its handling of child sex abuse scandals.

However, Pope Francis rejected his offer, urging the cardinal known for his reforms to stay and help shape change in the Catholic Church.

As archbishop in Munich since 2007, Marx could also find himself under scrutiny in the WSW report.

Friedrich Wetter, who held the role from 1982 to 2007, is also still alive.

The abuse scandal has thwarted the Catholic Church’s efforts to spearhead broad reforms in Germany.

It counted 22.2 million members in 2020 and is still the largest religion in the country, but the number is 2.5 million fewer than in 2010 when the first major wave of paedophile abuse cases came to light.

Payouts for victims of abuse were increased in 2020 to up to 50,000 euros ($56,700), from around 5,000 euros previously, but campaigners say the sum is still inadequate.

Ahead of the publication of the Munich report, the Eckiger Tisch victims’ group called for “compensation instead of hollow words”.

“Far too many children and young people have fallen victim” to a system “shaped by abuse of power, intransparency and despotism”, said Matthias Katsch, a spokesman for the group.

Source: AFP

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died Sunday at the age of 90, was the moral compass of his beloved “Rainbow Nation”, never afraid to speak truth to power, whatever its creed or colour.

A tireless activist, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for combatting white minority rule in his country.

“The passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement.

Famously outspoken, even after the fall of the racist apartheid regime, Tutu never shied away from confronting South Africa’s shortcomings or injustices.

“It’s a great privilege, it’s a great honour that people think that maybe your name can make a small difference,” he told AFP shortly before his 80th birthday in 2011.

Whether taking on his church over gay rights, lobbying for Palestinian statehood or calling out South Africa’s ruling African National Congress on corruption, his high-profile campaigns were thorny and often unwelcome.

None at the top were spared — not even his close friend, late president Nelson Mandela, with whom Tutu sparred in 1994 over what he called the ANC’s “gravy train mentality”.

Yet “the Arch” brought an exuberant playfulness to all his endeavours.

Quick to crack jokes — often at his own expense — he was always ready to dance and laugh uproariously with an infectious cackle that became his trademark.

It was Tutu who coined and popularised the term “Rainbow Nation” to describe South Africa when Mandela became president.

At the time, Tutu was serving as the first black Anglican archbishop of Cape Town.

Ordained at the age of 30 and appointed archbishop in 1986, he used his position to advocate for international sanctions against apartheid, and later to lobby for rights globally.

‘Moral titan’ 

Along the way, he won a host of admirers.

“I believe that God is waiting for the archbishop. He is waiting to welcome Desmond Tutu with open arms,” said Mandela, who stayed at Tutu’s home on his first night of freedom in 1990, after 27 years in apartheid jails.

“If Desmond gets to heaven and is denied entry, then none of the rest of us will get in!”

The Dalai Lama called Tutu his “spiritual older brother”.

Irish activist and pop star Bob Geldof praised him as “a complete pain in the arse” for those in power, and US President Barack Obama hailed him as “a moral titan”.

Among Tutu’s critics were Zimbabwe’s veteran former president Robert Mugabe, who described him as an “evil and embittered little bishop”.

Even with his global celebrity, his faith remained an integral part of his life.

His family’s road trips included quiet time for prayers, and his missives blasting the evils of apartheid were signed off with “God bless you”.

“I developed tremendous respect for his fearlessness. It wasn’t fearlessness of a wild kind. It was fearlessness anchored in his deep faith in God,” said apartheid’s last leader, F.W. de Klerk.

Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997 and underwent repeated treatment.

He had retired a year earlier to lead a harrowing journey into South Africa’s brutal past, as head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

For 30 months, the commission lifted the lid on the horrors of apartheid.

Tutu, with his instinctive humanity, broke down and sobbed at one of its first hearings.

A recipient of numerous awards, his causes ranged from child marriage to Tibet to calls for Western leaders to be tried over the Iraq war, and in later years for the right-to-die.

He also swore he would never worship a homophobic God.

“I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place,” he said.

Post-apartheid frustrations

Born in the small town of Klerksdorp, west of Johannesburg, on October 7, 1931, Tutu was the son of a domestic worker and a school teacher.

Following in his father’s footsteps, he trained as a teacher before anger at the inferior education system set up for black children prompted him to become a priest.

He lived for a while in Britain, where, he recalled, he would needlessly ask for directions just to be called “Sir” by a white policeman.

Tutu believed firmly in the reconciliation of black and white South Africans.

“I am walking on clouds. It is an incredible feeling, like falling in love. We South Africans are going to be the Rainbow People of the world,” he said in 1994.

But post-apartheid South Africa increasingly became a source of his despair, as the high hopes of the early days of democracy gave way to disillusionment over violence, inequality and graft.

Never a member of the ANC, Tutu said in 2013 that he would no longer vote for the party, though President Cyril Ramaphosa — an old friend — re-built bridges after coming to power in 2018.

Tutu made a rare public appearance in May 2021 to receive his vaccine for Covid-19. He appeared outside of hospital in a wheelchair, and waved but did not speak.

He married his wife Leah in 1955. They had four children.

Source: AFP

Pope Francis called for more solidarity with those living in poverty as he celebrated mass in Rome in front of a masked congregation of around 2,000 people, while billions around the world again marked Christmas under the shadow of the coronavirus.

An explosion in cases driven by the rise of the Omicron variant has meant a Christmas season tainted by the pandemic for a second year running, with Santa’s arrival and longed-for family reunions overshadowed by the prospect of yet more Covid-19 restrictions.

In St Peter’s Basilica, the 85-year-old Argentine pontiff urged the faithful to “value the little things in life”.

“On this night of love, may we have only one fear: that of offending God’s love, hurting him by despising the poor with our indifference,” said Francis, who later Saturday will give his traditional Urbi et Orbi address and blessing.

About 2,000 members of the public and 200 religious figures attended the Christmas Eve mass, wearing face masks and respecting social distancing as part of measures against the coronavirus.

In Bethlehem’s Manger Square, visitors in Santa hats and scouts beating drums marked Christmas Eve, but numbers were lower than usual as coronavirus fears overshadowed celebrations for a second straight year.

The city where Christians believe Jesus was born is usually a focal point of the holiday, with thousands packing the streets and filling hotels.

But Israel, which controls all entrances to Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, barred its borders to foreigners in an effort to rein in infections from the Omicron strain of the coronavirus.

“It is a bit surreal,” American student Hudson Harder told AFP.

“There is a selfish part where it’s like ‘Oh I get to see this place so empty’ but on the other hand you feel for the shops, all the money they are losing, it’s really quite tragic.”

Flights cancelled

In his homily for midnight mass celebrated in St Catherine’s Church in Bethlehem, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa said it was however encouraging that celebrations were “certainly more joyful this year”.

“Compared to last year’s Christmas, the participation is much greater and this is an encouraging sign,” he told the masked congregation, but regretted the absence of foreign worshippers due to the pandemic.

In the southern Philippines, standing in a pool of water in his typhoon-hit church, Father Ricardo Virtudazo celebrated Christmas Day mass with dozens of devotees who prayed for a better year after the storm killed nearly 400 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

“What’s important is all of us are safe,” said Joy Parera, 31, attending the service with her husband in the town of Alegria on the island of Mindanao.

Another survivor, Marites Sotis, said she would usually serve up meat, spring rolls and salad for Christmas but that her family was struggling after the storm felled most of their coconut trees.

“We won’t have those this year because they cost a lot of money,” Sotis, 53, told AFP. “We’ll make do with spaghetti.”

For the second year, surging infections have complicated yuletide plans from Sydney to Seville.

The new coronavirus strain severely disrupted holiday travel, with tracking website Flightaware.com reporting more than 2,300 flights had been cancelled around the world, hundreds of them in the United States.

Millions of Americans were nevertheless on the move to see loved ones for Christmas, even as Covid infections surpass the peak of the previous wave and hospitals run out of beds.

In Washington, US President Joe Biden and his wife Jill visited a children’s hospital for the traditional Christmas book-reading by the first lady.

The couple chatted with patients and doctors, showing one boy a photo of “Commander” — their new puppy — before settling into chairs beside a Christmas tree and reading a book inspired by the Disney movie “Frozen”.

In Europe, governments are reimposing misery-inducing safety measures that are draining the fun from Christmas for many.

The Netherlands is back in lockdown while Spain and Italy have made wearing masks compulsory outdoors.

And with Britain hitting a record high number of Covid-19 infections again on Friday for a third day in a row, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested getting a vaccine booster shot as a Christmas gift for relatives.

‘Ray of light’

Still, Christmas gatherings will be easier than a year ago in many other places around the world.

Most Australians are allowed to travel interstate over the festive break for the first time in two years, with Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher saying that Christmas was “a ray of light” in dark times.

And Santa Claus was not deterred from doing his rounds and been cleared for travel in Canada’s airspace after showing proof of vaccination and a pre-flight negative Covid test, Ottawa’s transport minister said.

According to the North American Aerospace Defense Command’s (NORAD) Santa-tracking website, Father Christmas had delivered nearly five billion gifts and was flying over Canada at around 0200 GMT.

“He’s been at it for many hours already and will go throughout the evening as well,” said Major General Eric Kenny, commander of the Canadian NORAD region.

Source: AFP