Vatican defends Benedict after report faults abuse record

The Vatican is strongly defending Pope Benedict XVI’s record in fighting clergy sexual abuse after an independent report faulted his handling of four cases of abuse when he was archbishop of Munich, Germany

ROME -- The Vatican on Wednesday strongly defended Pope Benedict XVI’s record in fighting clergy sexual abuse and cautioned against looking for “easy scapegoats and summary judgments," after an independent report faulted his handling of four cases of abuse when he was archbishop of Munich, Germany.

The Holy See’s editorial director, Andrea Tornielli, provided the Vatican's first substantial response to the report in an editorial that appeared in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano and its media portal, Vatican News. In it, Tornielli recalled that Benedict was the first pope to meet with victims of abuse, that he had issued strong norms to punish priests who raped children and had directed the church to pursue a path of humility in seeking forgiveness for the crimes of its clerics.

“All this can neither be forgotten nor erased,” Tornielli wrote.

A German law firm released the lengthy report last week that had been commissioned by the German church to look into how cases of sexual abuse were handled in the archdiocese between 1945 and 2019. Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the archdiocese from 1977 to 1982, when he was named to head the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.