ROME — Retired Pope Benedict XVI on Feb. 8 acknowledged past failings of the Catholic Church in confronting clergy sexual abuse under his watch but stopped short of a direct, personal apology after an independent report faulted his handling of four cases of abuse when he was an archbishop in Germany in the 1970s and 80s.
A legal team advising the retired pope has also published an analysis challenging the German report's findings, arguing that investigators mischaracterized some of Benedict's actions or knowledge during his time as archbishop.
"I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church. All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my mandate," Benedict wrote in a personal letter published Feb. 8. "Each individual case of sexual abuse is appalling and irreparable. The victims of sexual abuse have my deepest sympathy and I feel great sorrow for each individual case."
Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed Germany's Archdiocese of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982 before being appointed as head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and then being elected pope in 2005.
The independent report, prepared by a law firm at the archdiocese's request, was tasked with looking into abuse between 1945 and 2019 and whether church officials handled allegations correctly. The report authors concluded that in four cases during Benedict's tenure in Munich involving misbehaving priests, the future pope "can be accused of misconduct."
Following the report's publication, Benedict, through his secretary Archbishop Georg Gänswein, vowed to read the report's nearly 2,000 pages of findings and offer a response. The retired pope's new Feb. 8 letter offers a personal reflection on the report's findings, as well as an analysis that challenges some of its key findings.
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