8, February 2022
Ex-pope Benedict asks for forgiveness for clerical child sex abuse 0
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
17, February 2022
Cardinal slams abuse cover-ups at Vatican priest forum 0
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