“Joseph Ratzinger can’t bring himself simply to state that he is sorry not to have done more to protect the children.' Abuse survivors criticized retired Pope Benedict XVI after he asked forgiveness but denied any personal wrongdoing in sex abuse cases.
during his time as archbishop, accusing him of misconduct for having failed to restrict the ministry of the four priests even after they had been convicted criminally. The report also faulted his predecessors and successors, estimating there had been at least 497 abuse victims over the decades and at least 235 suspected perpetrators.
“I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church,” the retired pope said in his letter. “All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my mandate.” His response drew swift criticism from Eckiger Tisch, a group representing German clergy abuse survivors, who said it fit into the church’s “permanent relativizing on matters of abuse — wrongdoing and mistakes took place, but no one takes concrete responsibility,” the group said.
The head of the German bishops conference, Limburg Bishop Georg Baetzing, had previously said that Benedict needed to respond to the report by distancing himself from his lawyers and advisers. “He must talk, and he must override his advisers and essentially say the simple sentence: ’I incurred guilt, I made mistakes and I apologize to those affected,” Baetzing said.”I am grateful to him for that and he deserves respect for it,” Baetzing wrote.
Benedict said he was deeply hurt that the “oversight” about his presence at the 1980 meeting had been used to “cast doubt on my truthfulness, and even to label me a liar.” But he said he had been heartened by the support he had received, including from his successor.
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