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A German sexual abuse victim accuses Benedict XVI of complicity and cover-up

2022-09-27T15:48:11.784Z


In 1980, Joseph Ratzinger admitted to his diocese a priest who had a criminal record as a pedophile and who reoffended without his superiors preventing his relationship with children.


The Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, has been sued along with other German religious for covering up and being complicit in a series of sexual abuse perpetrated by a priest.

The victim claims that Peter H., his parish priest, assaulted him when he was a boy in the Altotting district of Bavaria in the 1990s.

The civil suit of the man, who is now 38 years old, was filed in July and is directed not only against Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, but also against his successor as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Cardinal Friedrich Wetter.

The archdiocese also received the complaint earlier this week, its spokesman Christoph Kappes confirmed.

The Traunstein Regional Court has requested a statement from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who is 95 years old, following the lawsuit filed by the man who suffered abuse by a Catholic priest.

“Defendants have the opportunity to indicate their willingness to defend themselves within two weeks, after which they have four weeks and one month respectively to respond,” court spokeswoman Andrea Titz said.

The lawsuit, called a declaratory action, is not about criminal prosecution, but could possibly establish the church's guilt in cases of abuse.

"The fact that the court has now initiated preliminary written proceedings does not imply any substantive assessment of the court's chances of success of the appeal," said the spokeswoman.

The background to the lawsuit filed against Ratzinger and his successor in the archbishopric of Munich-Freising is the case of the priest Peter H., who was dismissed from the clergy in the summer.

H. initially worked in the diocese of Essen and was later transferred to Munich for therapy following allegations of child abuse.

The plaintiff reportedly accuses Benedict XVI of having used H. in parish work with children and youth despite knowing of the abuses.

The pope emeritus had accepted the priest in his diocese of Munich and Freising at a meeting with the archdiocese's dome on January 15, 1980, despite the fact that H. had a criminal record as a pederast.

In Bavaria, the priest subsequently committed other acts of abuse.

The lawsuit notes that Benedict XVI had been "aware of all the circumstances" during his time as archbishop of Munich-Freising.

With this, he had "at least consented to the fact that this priest was a repeat offender."

An expert report commissioned by the archdiocese of Munich and Freising, presented in January by a law firm, concluded that sexual abuse cases in the diocese had not been adequately dealt with for decades.

Experts also accused the pope emeritus of misconduct in several cases, including that of H.

In his statement to the Munich experts, Benedict initially stated that he had not been present at the meeting in question, but he corrected this statement after the publication of the expert opinion and explained it as a “carelessness in writing”.

Finally, Benedicto wrote a letter in which he apologized to the victims of sexual abuse, but he always firmly rejected the specific accusations of cover-up against himself.

At the meeting on January 15, 1980, no decision was made on the "pastoral assignment" of Father H., the pope emeritus said.

Benedicto did not know that H. had been the perpetrator of abuse or that he was going to be used again in pastoral care, according to a statement from his team of advisers.

His lawyer, Carsten Brennecke, called the new accusations against Benedict "malicious speculation" at the time.

However, the plaintiff alleges that the ecclesiastics have an institutional responsibility for not preventing the alleged abuses from taking place.

Criminally, the crime is already prescribed, but the victim wants the court to clarify the matter retroactively with a civil declaratory action.

The court will examine whether the responsible ecclesiastics at that time are also responsible for the damage caused to the victim.

That accusation could fail if the defendant ecclesiastics assert the statute of limitations exception.

According to Andreas Schulz, the plaintiff's lawyer, the Church must take a position as to whether she accepts responsibility for her or only formally defends herself in the civil process.

Experts believe the lawsuit has a chance if the Church waives its right to invoke the statute of limitations, as has already happened in other proceedings.

The former Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Wetter, announced that he did not want to request the prescription.

Source: elparis

All life articles on 2022-09-27

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