Retired Pope Benedict XVI requested forgiveness Tuesday for any “grievous flaws” in his handling of clergy sex abuse cases after an independent report condemned his behaviour in four cases while he was serving as archbishop of Munich, Germany, but admitted to no personal or particular wrongdoing.
“In the Catholic Church, I’ve had a lot of obligations. “My anguish is compounded by the excesses and errors that occurred in those various locations during my mandate,” the retired pope stated.
Benedict, 94, was responding to a study released on Jan. 20 by a German law company commissioned by the German Catholic Church to investigate how accusations of sexual abuse were handled in the Munich archdiocese between 1945 and 2019.
From 1977 to 1982, Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, presided over the archdiocese.
The authors of the report criticised Benedict’s treatment of four incidents during his time as archbishop, accusing him of misconduct for failing to restrict the priests’ ministry even after they had been convicted criminally. The report also chastised his predecessors and successors, stating that at least 497 abuse victims and 235 suspected perpetrators had been reported over the decades.
On Tuesday, the Vatican released a letter written by Benedict in response to the claims, as well as a more technical response from his legal team, which had previously delivered an 82-page response to the law firm about his nearly five-year term in Munich.
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