Survivors of German clerical abuse hail criticism of ex-pope

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Survivors of Catholic religious sex abuse in Germany have hailed a report accusing former Pope Benedict XVI of shielding perpetrator priests as “the collapse of a monument”.

The report, released Thursday and running to nearly 2,000 pages, says the 94-year-old former pontiff failed to tackle four abusive priests during his tenure as Archbishop of Munich, and he questioned his claim that he was unaware of the abuse.

In testimony to investigators, his former deputy in Munich, Father Gerhard Gruberm, said he was ‘pushed’ to take responsibility for an abuse case when he first emerged in 2010, “to protect the [then] Pope [Benedict]”.

“This tower of lies, erected to protect Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict, collapsed today,” said Matthias Katsch of the German Eckiger Tisch Survivor Group.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said Thursday he would respond after reading the document, which includes his 82-page written response to questions.

In this, he denies any knowledge of abuse by priests during his four years as archbishop until 1982, when he moved to Rome, and expressed “fundamental doubt” about the legal basis for claims against him.

“Pain and Shame”

Archbishop Georg Gänswein, private secretary to Benedict XVI, told Vatican News that the former pope “expresses his pain and shame for the abuse of minors committed by priests.”

In a two-hour presentation on Thursday, lawyers commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising said they had identified 497 cases, including the four stemming from the former pope’s time as archbishop of Munich.

“Two of these cases concern abuses committed during his tenure and sanctioned by the state,” said Dr. Martin Pusch, one of the investigators at the law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl. “In both cases, the authors remained active in pastoral work.”

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the current Archbishop of Munich, said he was “shaken and ashamed” by the report, which accuses him of failing to report two abusive priests to Rome.

A Vatican spokesman said Pope Francis would “study closely” the long-awaited report, which has sent shock waves through the Catholic Church in Germany.

Germany’s federal child abuse commissioner, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig, has accused German Catholic bishops of a “shameful and half-hearted” attempt to “eliminate sexual abuse”.

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