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Retired Pope Benedict corrects statement for Munich abuse report

Catholic News Service — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 19:50:17 +0000

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Amending a written statement made to a panel investigating clerical sexual abuse in his former Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, retired Pope Benedict XVI said he was present at a 1980 meeting to discuss the transfer of a priest accused of misconduct.

“He did attend the meeting on January 15, 1980,” said a statement issued on Pope Benedict’s behalf by his secretary, Archbishop Georg Ganswein.

“The statement to the contrary was therefore objectively incorrect. He would like to emphasise that this was not done out of bad faith but was the result of an oversight in the editing of his statement,” the archbishop said on January 24.

The 94-year-old Pope Benedict, he said, is still going through an almost 1900-page report, which was released on January 20, and looked at the handling of cases in the archdiocese between 1945 and 2019. The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger headed the Munich Archdiocese from 1977 to 1982.

The report identified 497 victims and 235 abusers, but the lawyers who conducted the study say they’re convinced the real numbers are much higher. In the report, the lawyers said that, on four occasions, then-Cardinal Ratzinger mishandled abuse allegations.

Particularly regarding the case of repeat offender Peter H., a priest sent to Munich from Essen in 1980, lawyer Ulrich Wastl described Pope Benedict’s statements as “not very credible”.

The law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, conducted the investigation for the archdiocese; the retired Pope had sent an 82-page statement to the investigators while they were doing the investigation.

In the statement, the former Pope had said he did not take part in a decisive meeting on the case of Peter H. But, at the news conference where the legal report was presented, Wastl read out the minutes of that meeting. In it, then-Archbishop Ratzinger is mentioned in several places as a rapporteur on other topics.

Once the retired Pope has had the time to thoroughly read the Westpfahl Spilker Wastl report, Archbishop Ganswein said, “he will explain” how the editing error occurred.

“He is very sorry for this mistake and asks pardon,” the archbishop said.

At the same time, Archbishop Ganswein said, the retired Pope’s assertion that “in this meeting no decision was made about a pastoral assignment of the priest in question” remains “objectively correct”.

The 1980 meeting, he said, dealt only with “the request to provide him (Peter H.) with accommodation during his therapeutic treatment in Munich”, a request that was granted. Later the priest was assigned to provide pastoral care in Bavaria and continued to sexually abuse minors.

Archbishop Ganswein assured the people of the archdiocese of Pope Benedict’s closeness, “especially in these days”, and his support of efforts “to clarify the situation”.

“He is thinking especially of the victims who have experienced sexual abuse and indifference,” he said.

Photo: St John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger ride in the popemobile during a visit to Germany in 1980. The cardinal – now retired Pope Benedict XVI – headed the Archdiocese of Munich 1977-1981. (CNS photo)

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Irish sister, archbishop apologise for historical treatment of unwed mothers

Catholic News Service — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 00:43:53 +0000

DUBLIN (CNS) – At least one order of Irish nuns and the primate of all Ireland welcomed a report from a judicial inquiry into mother-and-baby homes and acknowledged the Church failed to live up to its own values.

The Sisters of Bon Secours ran St Mary’s home in Tuam from 1925 until 1961. It was among 18 homes for unmarried mothers and their children cited by Judge Yvonne Murphy in her January 12 report; she said the homes showed a lack of compassion.

A Commission of Investigation spent five years investigating the treatment of unmarried mothers in state-funded Church-run homes and concluded that the blame for their “harsh treatment” rests primarily with their families, but that both the Church and state condoned this.

In a statement, Sister Eileen O’Connor, area leader of the congregation, acknowledged that “our Sisters of Bon Secours were part of this sorrowful history”.

“We did not live up to our Christianity when running the home,” Sister O’Connor said.

The report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and Certain Related Matters found that “Ireland was a cold harsh environment for many, probably the majority, of its residents during the earlier half of the period under remit”. The report said that Ireland was “especially cold and harsh for women.”

The responsibility for the “harsh treatment” of unmarried mothers “rests mainly with the fathers of their children and their own immediate families,” the report said.

The commission stated that the mistreatment of unmarried mothers “was supported by, contributed to, and condoned by, the institutions of the state and the churches.” At the same time, the commission found that “it must be acknowledged that the institutions under investigation provided a refuge – a harsh refuge in some cases – when the families provided no refuge at all.”

Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh, Northern Ireland, head of the Irish bishops’ conference, welcomed the report and unreservedly apologised to the survivors and all who were personally affected.

The inquiry was established after a local historian, Catherine Corless, discovered death certificates for almost 800 infants at St Mary’s in Tuam, but no burial records. A public outcry ensued after the remains of hundreds of babies were found in a mass grave.

(CNS Photo): An angel and statue of Mary are pictured at a cemetery in Tuam, Ireland, where the bodies of nearly 800 infants were uncovered at the site of a former Catholic home for unmarried mothers and their children.

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McCarrick report summary cites lack of serious investigation of rumours

Catholic News Service — Wed, 11 Nov 2020 01:47:46 +0000

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Although dogged for years by rumours of sexual impropriety, Theodore McCarrick was able to rise up the Catholic hierarchical structure based on personal contacts, protestations of his innocence and a lack of Church officials reporting and investigating accusations, according to the Vatican summary of its report on the matter.
In choosing then-Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Newark in 2000 to be archbishop of Washington and later a cardinal, St John Paul II likely overlooked rumours and allegations about McCarrick’s sexual misconduct because of a long relationship with him, McCarrick’s own strong denial and the Pope’s experience with communist authorities in Poland making accusations to discredit the Church, the summary said.
But, in fact, rumours of McCarrick’s conduct, especially knowledge that he had young adult men and seminarians sleep in the same bed with him when he was bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey, led the Vatican to decide it would be “imprudent” to promote him when looking for candidates to become archbishop of Chicago in 1997, New York in 1999-2000 and, initially, of Washington in July, 2000, the report said.
One hour before the release on November 10 of the “Report on the Holy See’s Institutional Knowledge and Decision-Making Related to Former Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick”, journalists were given the document’s 14-page introduction, which described the two-year investigation that led to the report’s compilation and gave an “executive summary” of its findings.
In June 2018, the Vatican suspended McCarrick from ministry after an investigation by the Archdiocese of New York found credible a charge that he sexually abused a teenager. McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals in July, and in February, 2019, after a canonical process found McCarrick guilty of “solicitation in the sacrament of confession and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power”, Pope Francis dismissed him from the priesthood.
In August, 2018, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, former nuncio to the United States, called on Pope Francis to resign after claiming that he had informed Pope Francis of McCarrick’s abuse in 2013 and that top Vatican officials knew of McCarrick’s abusive behavior for years.
That claim led Pope Francis to initiate an investigation into how McCarrick was able to continue to rise through Church ranks despite the repeated rumours, anonymous letters, allegations and even settlements with alleged victims.
The report summary said, “No records support Vigano’s account” of his meeting with Pope Francis “and evidence as to what he said is sharply disputed”.
Until the allegations about child sexual abuse were made to the Archdiocese of New York in 2017, “Francis had heard only that there had been allegations and rumours related to immoral conduct with adults occurring prior to McCarrick’s appointment to Washington”, it said.
“Believing that the allegations had already been reviewed and rejected by Pope John Paul II, and well aware that McCarrick was active during the papacy of Benedict XVI, Pope Francis did not see the need to alter the approach that had been adopted in prior years,” the summary said.
The introduction to the report said it is based on documents found at the Vatican and the apostolic nunciature in the United States as well as interviews – “ranging in length from one to 30 hours” – with more than 90 witnesses in the United States, Italy and elsewhere. They included survivors, cardinals, bishops and former seminarians.
In a statement issued with the report, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said the contributions of survivors were “fundamental”. The introduction of the report cautions survivors of abuse that certain sections “could prove traumatising” and warns that some portions of the document are “inappropriate for minors”.
He also said that, over the course of the two years it took to complete the investigation and compile the report, “we have taken significant steps forward to ensure greater attention to the protection of minors and more effective interventions to avoid” repeating errors of the past.
Among those steps, he highlighted “Vos Estis Lux Mundi” (“You are the Light of the World”), Pope Francis’ 2019 document on promoting bishops’ accountability and setting out procedures for handling accusations of abuse against bishops.
According to the summary, St John Paul’s decisions to name McCarrick bishop of Metuchen in 1981 and archbishop of Newark in 1986 were based on “his background, skills and achievements. During the appointment process, McCarrick was widely lauded as a pastoral, intelligent and zealous bishop”.
The summary also said that, at the time, “no credible information emerged suggesting that he had engaged in any misconduct”.
But in October, 1999, Cardinal John O’Connor of New York wrote to Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, then nuncio in the United States, summarising allegations about McCarrick, then-archbishop of Newark. The letter was given to St John Paul, who asked Archbishop Montalvo to investigate.
The nuncio did so by writing to four New Jersey bishops, the summary said without naming the bishops. The bishops, named in the full report, were Bishops James McHugh of Camden, 1989-1998; Vincent Breen of Metuchen, 1997-2000; Edward Hughes of Metuchen, 1987-1997; and John Smith of Trenton, 1997-2010.
“What is now known, through investigation undertaken for preparation of the report, is that three of the four American bishops provided inaccurate and incomplete information to the Holy See regarding McCarrick’s sexual conduct with young adults,” the summary said.
In response to Cardinal O’Connor’s accusations, the report said, McCarrick wrote to now-Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, St John Paul’s secretary, claiming: “In the 70 years of my life, I have never had sexual relations with any person, male or female, young or old, cleric or lay, nor have I ever abused another person or treated them with disrespect.”
“McCarrick’s denial was believed,” the summary said, adding that because of “the limited nature of the Holy See’s own prior investigation, the Holy See had never received a complaint directly from a victim, whether adult or minor, about McCarrick’s conduct”.
“Though there is no direct evidence,” the summary added, “it appears likely from the information obtained that John Paul II’s past experience in Poland regarding the use of spurious allegations against bishops to degrade the standing of the Church played a role in his willingness to believe McCarrick’s denials.”
In addition, McCarrick had a relationship with the Polish pope going back to his days as the cardinal of Krakow. The summary said, “McCarrick’s direct relationship with John Paul II also likely had an impact on the pope’s decision-making”.
St John Paul II “personally made the decision” to name him archbishop of Washington and a cardinal, it said.
The report also concluded that now-retired Pope Benedict XVI did not initiate a formal canonical process against McCarrick or even impose sanctions on him because “there were no credible allegations of child abuse; McCarrick swore on his ‘oath as a bishop’ that the allegations were false; the allegations of misconduct with adults related to events in the 1980s; and there was no indication of any recent misconduct”.
However, after initially asking McCarrick to stay on in Washington for two years past his 75th birthday in 2005, the summary said, new details related to a priest’s allegations about McCarrick’s sexual misconduct emerged and Pope Benedict asked him to step down in 2006.
At the time, the summary said, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, then-prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, told McCarrick “he should maintain a lower profile and minimise travel for the good of the Church”.
“While Cardinal Re’s approach was approved by Pope Benedict XVI, the indications did not carry the Pope’s explicit imprimatur, were not based on a factual finding that McCarrick had actually committed misconduct and did not include a prohibition on public ministry,” the summary said.
Archbishop Vigano, while working in the Vatican Secretariat of State, wrote memos in 2006 and 2008 “bringing questions related to McCarrick to the attention of superiors”, the summary said. The memos referred to allegations and rumours about McCarrick’s “misconduct during the 1980s and raised concerns that a scandal could result given that the information had already circulated widely”.
The archbishop, the report said, noted that “the allegations remained unproven”, but he suggested opening a canonical process to investigate.
Archbishop Vigano, who was appointed nuncio to the United States in 2011, was “instructed” in 2012 to conduct an inquiry into allegations by a priest who claimed he was sexually assaulted by McCarrick, the summary said.
Archbishop Vigano, it continued, “did not take these steps and therefore never placed himself in the position to ascertain the credibility” of the priest’s claims.

Photo: Then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington faces the press in the shadow of St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican in 2002 (CNS photo)

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