Pope Francis leaves Paul VI Corridor on the Vatican, on Jan. 12, 2022. (Alessandra Tarantino / AP)
ROME --
Pope Francis vowed Friday to supply justice to victims of clergy sexual abuse and German authorities known as for additional investigation after an impartial audit faulted retired Pope Benedict XVI for having botched 4 circumstances of abuse when he was archbishop of Munich, Germany.
The fallout from the report continued to reverberate Friday as church officers digested the findings that a pope credited with having turned the Vatican round on the abuse concern had in actual fact mishandled circumstances earlier in his profession.
Someday after the report's launch, Francis met with the members of the Vatican workplace that handles intercourse abuse circumstances in a beforehand scheduled viewers. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Religion was headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger for practically a quarter-century earlier than he turned Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.
In his speech, Francis did not discuss with the findings of the report into how the Munich archdiocese dealt with abuse circumstances from 1945 and 2019. Ratzinger was archbishop there from 1977-1982.
However Francis mentioned the church was persevering with to discern the best way ahead within the abuse scandal, which has discredited the Catholic hierarchy on the Vatican and world wide.
"The church, with God's assist, is finishing up the dedication with agency willpower to do justice to the victims of abuse by its members, making use of with specific consideration and rigor to the canonical laws envisaged," Francis instructed the group.
He recalled he had lately up to date the Vatican norms to deal with abuse circumstances to make them more practical.
"This alone can't be sufficient to stem the phenomenon, however it's a vital step to revive justice, to restore scandal and reform the offender," he mentioned.
The German report ready by an impartial legislation agency discovered that Ratzinger mishandled 4 circumstances of abusive clergy throughout his tenure as archbishop. Till Thursday, just one identified case implicating his Munich tenure had been made public; the report discovered that the church's declare that Ratzinger was unaware of the priest's background lacked credibility.
Prosecutors in Munich mentioned Friday they're inspecting 42 circumstances of attainable wrongdoing by church officers arising from Thursday's report. Spokesperson Anne Leiding instructed German information company dpa that the circumstances had been referred to them by the legislation agency that ready the report final yr.
If any suspicion of "attainable criminally related behaviour" emerges from the examination, Leiding mentioned, prosecutors will search additional particulars from the legislation agency.
The legislation agency mentioned on Thursday that the circumstances contain dwelling officers who're nonetheless in workplace.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz's spokeswoman, Christiane Hoffmann, mentioned Friday it was "pressing that these issues be totally investigated and a complete reappraisal be carried out."
The report makes "the extent of the abuse and breach of responsibility by church dignitaries shockingly clear." she mentioned.
"It's essential that confidence within the technique of coming to phrases with the previous is strengthened within the Catholic Church and by particular person dignitaries," she mentioned.
The Vatican did not instantly touch upon the report, saying it could learn it fastidiously within the coming days. Benedict's longtime secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, additionally mentioned the retired pope hadn't but learn the report, however would.
Benedict, who supplied info to the report's authors, expressed his upset and disgrace in regards to the scandal, Gaenswein mentioned.
Benedict's legacy as pope had already been colored by the 2010 international eruption of the clergy abuse scandal, despite the fact that as a cardinal he was liable for turning across the Vatican's strategy to the difficulty.
Ratzinger took the then-revolutionary resolution in 2001 to imagine accountability for processing abuse circumstances after he realized bishops world wide weren't punishing abusers however had been simply shifting them from parish to parish and enabling them to rape once more.
That call, nonetheless, got here after Ratzinger was nonetheless sitting on circumstances on the Vatican. Years in the past documentation emerged exhibiting that Ratzinger in 1985 dithered on a case of a convicted baby molester in California who requested to be defrocked, delaying any motion for 2 years.
The case of the Rev. Stephen Kiesle was proof that the Vatican underneath St. John Paul II strongly resisted letting monks depart energetic ministry, even when they had been convicted rapists.
A fellow German and one in every of Ratzinger's successors on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Religion, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, dismissed the report's findings, suggesting they had been ideologically motivated to assault Ratzinger and saying if there have been errors within the dealing with of circumstances, Ratzinger did not learn about them.
He famous that within the Seventies and Eighties, neither the church nor society at massive dealt with baby intercourse abusers correctly.
"It was thought that remedy might resolve the issue. At this time we all know that that is ineffective for these criminals," he mentioned.
Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI at Munich Airport in Freising, Germany, on June 22, 2020. (Sven Hoppe / dpa by way of AP)
Post a Comment