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Commemoration of Benedict XVI
in Altoetting
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The trial of the recently deceased Pope Benedict XVI.
at the district court of Traunstein has been temporarily suspended.
This was confirmed by a court spokeswoman.
The Bayerischer Rundfunk and the research collective Correctiv had previously reported on it.
The law firm of the Pope Emeritus, who died on New Year's Eve, has requested that the proceedings be paused until a legal successor has been identified.
As soon as that is the case, it will be resumed, the spokeswoman said.
However, the proceedings against other accused church officials continue.
In the summer of last year, a man who said he 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 not only aimed at Joseph Ratzinger, who was Archbishop of Munich and Freising at the time when the abuser was transferred to his diocese.
It is also directed against the convicted man himself, the archbishopric and Ratzinger's successor in the office of archbishop, Cardinal Friedrich Wetter.
The aim of the lawsuit is, among other things, to determine whether diocese officials have covered up crimes and thus made further crimes possible.
whale/dpa