VATICAN (CNS): Ninety-four-year old Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI amended a written statement made to a panel investigating clerical sexual abuse in his former Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, to say he was present at a 1980 meeting to discuss the transfer of a priest accused of misconduct.
“He did attend the meeting on 15 January 1980,” said a statement issued on Pope Benedict’s behalf by his secretary, Archbishop Georg Ganswein.
“The statement to the contrary was therefore objectively incorrect. He would like to emphasise that this was not done out of bad faith but was the result of an oversight in the editing of his statement,” the archbishop said on January 24.
He said that Pope Benedict is still going through an almost 1,900-page report, which was released on January 20 and looked at the handling of cases in the archdiocese between 1945 and 2019. The former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger headed the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982.
The report identified 497 victims and 235 abusers, but the lawyers who conducted the study say they’re convinced the real numbers are much higher. In the report, the lawyers said that, on four occasions, then-Cardinal Ratzinger mishandled abuse allegations.
The law firm, Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, conducted the investigation for the archdiocese and the retired pope had sent an 82-page statement to the investigators while they were conducting the investigation.
Archbishop Ganswein said that once the retired pope has had the time to thoroughly read the report, “he will explain” how the editing error occurred.
“He is very sorry for this mistake and asks pardon,” the archbishop said.
At the same time, the archbishop said that the retired pope’s assertion that “in this meeting no decision was made about a pastoral assignment of the priest in question” remains “objectively correct.”
Archbishop Ganswein assured the people of the archdiocese of Pope Benedict’s closeness, “especially in these days,” and his support of efforts “to clarify the situation.”
“He is thinking especially of the victims who have experienced sexual abuse and indifference,” the archbishop said.
The 1980 meeting, he said, dealt only with “the request to provide … accommodation [for the offending priest] during his therapeutic treatment in Munich,” a request that was granted. Later the priest was assigned to provide pastoral care in Bavaria and continued to sexually abuse minors.
