Former Pope Benedict XVI’s mixed legacy on child sex abuse

Vatican City:

Benedict XVI was the first pope in the Catholic Church to face the scourge of clerical sex abuse, but only after a career in which he himself was accused of covering it up.

German Joseph Ratzinger, who died on Saturday at the age of 95, was the first pope to meet with victims of abuse and removed nearly 400 priests in the last two years of his pontificate.

His actions were a marked change from those of his predecessor, John Paul II, who took decades to respond to allegations about pedophile priests around the world, from Australia to Chile, France and the United States.

But his successor, Pope Francis, has gone much further, questioning why Benedict hasn’t done more during a long career as pope and at the helm of the church.

His final years were marred by allegations that he knowingly failed to stop four priests accused of child sex abuse while he was Munich archbishop in the 1980s.

After the claims surfaced in a 2022 bombshell report, Benedict’s aides insisted that “as an archbishop, Cardinal Ratzinger was not involved in concealing any acts of abuse”.

‘Protected Church, Not Children’

But critics had for years accused the quiet theologian, known as a brilliant but cold intellect, of being ill-equipped to handle the scale of the problem.

Revelations of widespread sexual abuse of children by priests around the world, and attempts by the Catholic Church to cover up the crimes, began to emerge in the late 1980s.

However, it was not until 2001 that then-Pope John Paul II ordered the bishops to submit the case files to the Vatican’s powerful doctrinal office, headed by Ratzinger.

The ultimate responsibility for investigating allegations of abuse rested with the then-Cardinal.

He had earned the nickname “God’s Rottweiler” as a doctrinal head – but critics said he fiercely protected the reputation of the Church rather than the children.

A leaked confidential letter sent to all bishops in May 2001 revealed that Ratzinger had ordered the investigation to be kept secret – which his accusers said effectively shielded the hunters and prevented a police investigation.

historic first

However, as Pope, he was more outspoken.

In 2006, a year after his election, Benedict disciplined Marcial Maciel Degollado, the most prominent priest accused of sex abuse and long protested by John Paul II.

The founder of the Orthodox Legion of Christ was ordered to renounce his public ministry for a life of “prayer and repentance”, seen by Benedict’s supporters as a historic moment.

Two years later, Benedict became the first pope to meet with victims of abuse during visits to the United States and Australia, saying he “did not have the words … to describe the pain and loss”.

He was also the first pope to devote an entire document to the crisis – his pastoral letter to Ireland in 2010, in which he said he shared the victims’ “sense of despair and betrayal”.

His decision to remove nearly 400 priests in the last two years of his pontificate is credited by some with starting a cleansing process that Francis accelerated.

“As pope, it was (Benedict) who opened this dramatic chapter,” Vatican expert Iaocopo Scaramuzzi, a journalist with the Italian daily La Repubblica, told AFP.

“He accepted criticism, set new standards, met with the victims… He was far tougher than John Paul II.”

‘Deep shame’

But Benedict disappointed many when in 2019, six years after retiring to live a quiet life within the Vatican, the then “pope emeritus” spoke out to blame the abuse scandals on the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

And in 2022 his reputation took a severe blow when he was forced to apologize for clerical child sexual abuse committed on his watch.

An independent investigation by a German law firm found that he actively failed to stop pedophile priests in the 1980s – even though in two cases they had committed multiple proven acts of abuse.

Benedict wrote, “I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church. My pain is still greater for the abuses and errors that have occurred in those various places during my mandate.”

But while he spoke of his “deep shame” and “heartfelt request for forgiveness”, groups representing abuse victims accused him of failing to take any concrete responsibility.

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