German investigation accuses Pope Benedict XVI of 'wrongdoing' in handling of abuse cases
Source: Washington Post
The law firm that carried out the investigation said Benedict could be accused of wrongdoing in four cases, including one in which he knowingly accepted a priest into his archdiocese even after the cleric had been convicted of sexual abuse in a criminal court.
At a news conference to unveil the findings, a lawyer said that Benedict — known then as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — claimed to have no direct knowledge of the cases. But his denials were “not reconcilable with the files in evidence,” the lawyer, Martin Pusch said.
The report, commissioned by the archdiocese in Munich and compiled by German law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, provides a harsh judgment about one of the most influential Catholic figures of the last century, and suggests the retired pope had direct knowledge of clerical abuse well before it exploded into a public crisis.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/20/germany-church-abuse-benedict/
= new reply since forum marked as read
O'Connor rips Pope's picture
[link:
|
Well OK I get your point.
But it's interesting that the Germans have investigated former Pope Benedict's handling of the pedophile crisis. Before he became Pope, Benedict's job was to investigate the priests who were being charged with "unholy relations" with underage children which had become rampant in the last 30+ years. Unless you've been living under a rock, you've already heard about the massive scandal of pedo-priests so I'm not going into all of that.
The interesting thing was that it was believed that Pope Benedict did an OK or pretty good job while he was in charge of the investigation. So why did he shock the entire world by "retiring" from his lifetime position as Pope? He has never said, and a lot of people have been left to wonder and speculate. Maybe he didn't do such a great job investigating the pedo-priests after all. Maybe he really, really messed up and he didn't want to be around when it all came out.
We can only wonder ... but it seems that some Germans are getting to the bottom of it.
