Vat­i­can is­sues let­ter by Bene­dict XVI fol­low­ing a Ger­man re­port in­to abuse in the arch­dio­cese from 1945 to 2019.

Source:Al­jazeera

For­mer Pope Bene­dict has ac­knowl­edged that er­rors oc­curred in han­dling sex­u­al abuse cas­es when he was arch­bish­op of Mu­nich and asked for for­give­ness, as his lawyers ar­gued he was not di­rect­ly to blame.

The Vat­i­can on Tues­day is­sued a let­ter by Bene­dict and a three-page ad­den­dum fol­low­ing a re­port re­leased last month on abuse in the arch­dio­cese from 1945 to 2019 by Ger­man in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

The 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.

“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 in the let­ter, his first per­son­al re­sponse to the re­port.

“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 … once again I can on­ly ex­press to all the vic­tims of sex­u­al abuse my pro­found shame, my deep sor­row and my heart­felt re­quest for for­give­ness.”

Bene­dict, who is in frail health, asked a team of lawyers to help him re­spond to the lengthy find­ings by law firm Westp­fahl Spilk­er Wastl (WSW).

The aides in­sist­ed in a state­ment pub­lished along­side the let­ter 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.

Bene­dict’s page-and-a-half page Ger­man let­ter was deeply per­son­al and couched in re­li­gious terms as he re­flect­ed on a long life ap­proach­ing its end.

In one sec­tion he open­ly won­dered if he, as all Catholics do in a prayer known as the Con­fi­te­or at Mass, should ask for for­give­ness for what they have done and what they have failed to do “by my fault, by my most griev­ous fault”.

He does not an­swer his own ques­tion but says he is con­soled that God for­gives.

In the let­ter, Bene­dict says that de­spite any mis­takes he may have made, God would be the ul­ti­mate ar­biter. “Quite soon, I shall find my­self be­fore the fi­nal judge of my life.”

Bene­dict, who re­signed un­ex­pect­ed­ly in 2013, al­so thanked Pope Fran­cis for the “con­fi­dence, sup­port and prayer … per­son­al­ly ex­pressed to me”. He did not elab­o­rate.

Soon af­ter the Ger­man re­port was is­sued, Bene­dict ac­knowl­edged that he had been at a 1980 meet­ing over a sex­u­al abuse case when he was arch­bish­op of Mu­nich, say­ing he had mis­tak­en­ly told Ger­man in­ves­ti­ga­tors he was not there.

At the time, Bene­dict’s per­son­al sec­re­tary, Arch­bish­op Georg Gan­swein, said the omis­sion was the re­sult of an over­sight in the edit­ing of 82-pages of tes­ti­mo­ny he had sent the in­ves­ti­ga­tors and not done out of bad faith.

In Mon­day’s let­ter, Bene­dict said: “To me it proved deeply hurt­ful that this over­sight was used to cast doubt on my truth­ful­ness, and even to la­bel me a liar.”