In an editorial revealed Wednesday, the Vatican defended Pope Benedict XVI's document of dealing with sexual abuse instances within the church following a report the previous pope had mishandled 4 instances of that nature within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties.
Andrea Tornielli, the editorial director for the Vatican's Dicastery for Communication, wrote the article that was revealed within the Vatican Information.
That is the lengthiest response from the Vatican but after German legislation agency Westpfahl Spilker Wastl launched its report final week. Newsweek beforehand reported the legislation agency's report coated church officers' dealing with of sexual abuse allegations between 1945 and 2019.
The report accused Benedict, then often called Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, of mishandling 4 instances when he was head of the Munich Archdiocese from 1977 to 1982. This allegedly additionally included approving the switch of a pedophile priest to Munich in 1980 just for the priest to molest one other boy in 1986.
Within the editorial, Tornielli famous the report "isn't a judicial inquiry nor a closing sentence," however added that the reconstructions within the report will "assist to fight pedophilia within the Church if they don't seem to be decreased to the seek for straightforward scapegoats and abstract judgments."
He additionally added that the previous pope "didn't evade questions" when the investigation started and supplied the agency with an 82-page response after reviewing paperwork from the diocesan archives.
As a substitute of specializing in Benedict's time on the Munich Archdiocese, Tornielli referenced his time as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Religion and as pope, saying he promoted "very harsh norms in opposition to clerical abusers" and "particular legal guidelines" in opposition to pedophilia.
Tornielli additionally stated Benedict didn't deal with abuse victims as "enemies" of the church, as others had apparently performed earlier than him.
"For too lengthy abused kids and their family, as a substitute of being thought of wounded individuals to be welcomed and accompanied on the trail of therapeutic, have been saved at a distance," he wrote. "It was Joseph Ratzinger, the primary Pope to satisfy a number of occasions with victims of abuse throughout his apostolic journeys."
The Related Press reported that in 2001, whereas prefect of the doctrine workplace, Benedict observed clergymen accused of sexual abuse and rape had been being moved between parishes as a substitute of being punished, which prompted him to direct all instances to his workplace as a substitute. Within the final two years of his tenure, he defrocked virtually 400 clergymen he discovered responsible of abuse.
In response to the editorial, the previous pope plans to launch his personal detailed assertion on the difficulty as soon as he finishes studying the report.
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