The German Catholic Church is again shaken by a pedophilia scandal. A report on sexual abuse committed since the war in the Archdiocese of Munich paints a bleak picture of the failures of the institution and calls into question the responsibility of the former Pope Benedict XVI.
With our correspondent in Berlin, Pascal Thibault
The old man’s answer Pope Benedict XVI to the accusations against him is very long, it is 82 pages. The person concerned denies any responsibility for four cases of sexual abuse which he allegedly covered up when he was Archbishop of Munich between 1977 and 1982.
The authors of the report come to a different conclusion. They believe that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger took no action to remove four clergymen guilty of raping minors when the former pope knew their inclinations and backgrounds. The case of the pedophile priest Peter Hullermann occupies no less than 370 pages out of the 1,700 in the report.
The latter, commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich, estimates that 500 minors have been victims of such practices since the war and speaks of a ” horrible record “. Two successors of former Pope Benedict XVI are also pinned.
The German Catholic Church has been rocked by revelations about pedophile priests for more than ten years. Two-thirds of the dioceses have launched surveys, often under pressure from outside. Victims criticize insufficient compensation.