Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI apologizes for sexual abuse but denies covering it up

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has asked forgiveness to victims of sexual abuse for errors made under their responsibility. He has done so in a letter published this Tuesday by the Vatican.

A few days ago, the president of the German Episcopal Conference, Georg Batzingconsidered that Benedict XVI had to apologize for his role in the sexual abuse scandal in the German Church and thus accept his responsibility in the cover-up of cases.

“I can only express to all victims of sexual abuse my deep shame, my great pain and my sincere request for forgiveness,” writes the Pope Emeritus in the long-awaited response letter to the report on the sexual abuse of minors in Germany, in which it was stated that he was aware of four cases of pedophile priests when he was Archbishop of Munich.

In his letter, Benedict XVI adds that his pain is even greater because he had “assumed a great responsibility in the Catholic Church“. “I have learned to understand that we ourselves are dragged into this great guilt when we neglect it or when we do not face it with the necessary decision and responsibility, as has happened and happens too often”, he underlined.

Benedict XVI was due today to respond personally to a case of sexual abuse after acknowledging that he had been at a meeting in 1980 in which a case of sexual abuse was discussed when he was archbishop of Munich. A meeting in which he initially told German investigators that he had not attended but that the documents in his possession disproved.

A report published in January on abuses in the archdiocese from 1945 to 2019 said then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger did not take action against clerics in four cases of alleged abuse when he was Archbishop of Munich between 1977 and 1982 and Ratzinger had to acknowledge that he was at that meeting assuring investigators that his initial denial “was the result of carelessness in editing the statement” and “it was not done in bad faith“.