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Pope Benedict XVI
in June 2020
Photo: Sven Hoppe / dpa
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
wants to defend himself after a lawsuit against him at the district court in Traunstein.
A court spokeswoman for the dpa news agency confirmed that he had announced his willingness to defend himself.
This clears a hurdle on the way to a possible trial.
If the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had not taken this step, a so-called default judgment would have been issued – but without the court having dealt with the allegations against him.
In the summer, a man who, according to his own statements, was abused by the convicted repeat offender Priest H. in Garching an der Alz, brought a civil action, a so-called declaratory action, at the Traunstein District Court.
It is directed not only against Ratzinger, who was then archbishop of Munich and Freising when the abuser was transferred to his diocese, but also against the convicted man himself, the archdiocese and Ratzinger's successor in the office of archbishop, Cardinal Friedrich Wetter.
From a criminal point of view, the whole thing no longer has any meaning.
But it is about the question of guilt that diocese officials may have taken upon themselves in the case.
Large chancellery to represent the former pope
According to dpa information, Ratzinger is now being represented in the matter by the Hogan Lovells law firm, which claims to be one of the "ten leading commercial law firms" in the world.
The law firm did not initially respond to a request.
According to the district court, all four defendants have asked for an extension of the deadline.
You now have until January 24 to respond to the content of the lawsuit.
The Garchinger Initiative Sauerteig, which wants to work up abuse in their parish, welcomed the procedural step.
She is financing the lawsuit and had previously appealed to Ratzinger in an open letter to indicate his willingness to defend himself.
“It is important to us that a secular court clarify how things happened both between the dioceses and within the ordinariate, that repeat offenders are moved back and forth and could start anew at every new point, so to speak, as a blank slate, even though they were already in several parishes Allegations had become known, "said spokeswoman Rosi Mittermeier.
The priest H. is one of the central cases in the abuse report presented by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising at the beginning of the year.
He was deployed in Garching in the 1980s, although there had previously been allegations against him in the diocese of Essen - and although the district court in Ebersberg had convicted him of sexual abuse during his time as a clergyman in Grafing near Munich.
In the meantime, it has become known that allegations have also been made against one of H.'s predecessors, who had been deployed in Garching an der Alz a few years before him.
It is still unclear whether he also attacked in Garching.
According to a spokesman, the Archdiocese, which has called on those affected to report, has not yet received any reports of alleged victims.
The lawsuit at the Traunstein district court may not be the only one that wants to give the pope emeritus complicity in the cover-up scandal in the church.
According to dpa, plaintiff lawyer Andreas Schulz said he was considering a civil lawsuit against Ratzinger for a victim in the United States.
It refers to the time when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican and as such should have been informed about many cases of abuse: "A civil lawsuit, as there were many there and for which the Catholic Church had to pay hundreds of millions," Schulz described the possible project.
kfr/dpa
