(Diether Endlicher/AP)
By Roberto Regoli / WSJ
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has come under criticism for his handling of sexual abuse cases as an archbishop more than 40 years ago. His lawyers contested the inquiry’s charges, and the discussion of whether he did enough to stop sexual predators in the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising will continue. The matter is crucial not only to the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI but to the future of the Catholic Church.
Intense internal debate has been common throughout the church’s 2,000-year history. But the conflict over sexual abuse is not simply about rooting out a great evil; it also has become a central feature of a more longstanding conversation about the church’s prospects. Any conversation about then-Archbishop Ratzinger’s alleged negligence must be considered with this in mind.
Episcopal conferences around the world have opened historical inquiries into sexual abuse in recent years, uncovering thousands of cases of abuse. The Munich investigation, carried out by the law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, ultimately alleged that the archbishop mishandled four cases of sexual abuse. In some of these cases, the argument is simply that he must have been aware of them, even though there isn’t hard evidence to prove it. The pope emeritus’s legal team has argued reasonably that Benedict hadn’t been aware of their criminal history.
The case of Father Peter Hullermann received perhaps the broadest coverage. From the documentation published so far, it appears that after having committed abuse in Rhineland, Father Hullerman was sent by his bishop to a rehabilitation facility in Munich for therapy. It also emerged that it was not long before he was involved in pastoral work that entailed contact with minors, giving to him the opportunity to perpetrate more abuses in the following years. As archbishop of Munich, Benedict attended a meeting regarding the priest’s transfer to his diocese.
Based on his testimony, he had no idea that the priest’s move was related to sexual abuse. What was known to him was that the priest was “at risk.” From the witnesses’ accounts, the decision to involve the priest in pastoral activities came not from the archbishop but from another official in the archdiocese.
Why the international outcry? Benedict previously had said he wasn’t present in the meeting concerning the priest’s transfer. The pope emeritus has apologized for the inaccuracy. Nevertheless, this mistake has been the foundation of a media campaign against his legacy. It’s especially strange to view Benedict as an enabler of abuse given his tough stance against these crimes as pope.
Is this forgetfulness reproachable? Yes. Is it to be imputed to Benedict XVI? No, because it was a clerical error made by his legal team. An error that is understandable given that his legal team was not put in a position to work properly. In fact, the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising allowed only one of his lawyers to have access to 8,000 pages of documentation, without the possibility of making a copy. Benedict XVI did not actively keep a secret or mislead investigators but only inaccurately reported an event, because the truth had already been known to the public since 2010.
What does all this have to do with the conflict within the church? There are two different interpretations. On one side, there are those—like the pope emeritus—who attribute the sexual-abuse crisis to the moral liberalism of the second half of the 20th century, stressing the personal responsibility for those crimes. The church may have mishandled its response, but the crisis was at its root a series of individual moral failings.
On the other side of the spectrum, there are those who attribute the abuses to a systemic crisis and blame the church as an institution. For the latter, this crisis should be a pretext to change essential aspects of church. Notice the requests of the German Synodal Path or the Sauvé Commission in France, framed as solutions to this crisis, to reconsider unrelated issues: the division of power within the church, the ordination of women, the elimination of priestly celibacy and much more.
The furor is not really about Benedict’s mistake in an episode already known to the public. Instead, it’s a question of what model the church intends to adopt for the future. The pope emeritus is an icon of one type of church, and this controversy has been used accordingly.
Sexual abuses should be addressed for what they are: grievous sins and crimes that took far too long to address. It would be an even greater tragedy if factional squabbles for power within the church diminish the effectiveness of the fight against abuse.
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Father Regoli, a biographer of Pope Benedict XVI, is a professor of church history at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.Energiesnet.com does not necessarily share these views.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Wall Street Journal , appeared in the February 18, 2022, print edition as ‘Benedict, Sex Abuse and the Church’s Future.’ All comments posted and published on EnergiesNet.com, do not reflect either for or against the opinion expressed in the comment as an endorsement of EnergiesNet.com or Petroleumworld.
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EnergiesNet.com 02 21 2022
