THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD


Cardinal begs forgiveness for Munich abuse scandals


Christa Pongratz-Lippitt In Vienna


A DEEPLYshocked Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich begged forgiveness in the name of the Church last week as he presented an inde- pendent attorney’s report on clerical sexual abuse in his archdiocese at a press conference in Munich. The report showed that such abuse had been systematically covered up in the archdiocese for decades. When a torrent of abuse allegations came


to a head in Germany in April, Cardinal Marx decided to enlist expert assistance in regis- tering, analysing and evaluating clerical sexual abuse in the archdiocese of Munich between 1945 and 2009. He commissioned an inde- pendent Munich lawyers’ firm to look into all cases, with a specific request to uncover and analyse the structural deficiences that con- tributed to the Church’s inadequate response. More than 13,200 documents, including


personnel dossiers, court documents, files relating to employment in schools and doc- uments from the confidential archives of the archbishop and vicar general were inspected.


The Vatican has produced a letter written in 1998 by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as evidence that he played a defining role in changing canonical penal procedures in order to more rapidly and easily discipline priests “guilty of grave and scandalous behaviour”, writes Robert Mickens. The letter, which the future pope wrote to


the cardinal-president of what was then called the Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of the Code of Canon Law,


The lawyers also questioned a large number of people at the bishop’s palace including the seminary rector, the head of the schools department and a retired vicar general. The commission found that 159 priests and


15 deacons had abused minors and that there were indications of abuse in 365 files but that only 26 priests had been convicted. “It must be emphasised that euphemistic, trivialising language was used [in the files] which often gave no more than an inkling of the complete extent of the offence and its effect on the vic- tim,” the report states. Files had, moreover, been systematically destroyed or moved to private quarters over decades. “We are dealing with extensive destruction of files and must therefore assume that there is a large number of undetected cases,” the lawyer in charge of the investigations, Marion Westphal, told the press on 3 December. The period from 1977 to 1982, when


Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, had been Archbishop of Munich, was particularly poorly documented, she said. Only one document showed that then-archbishop Ratzinger had personally


complained that dismissing such priests from the ministry took too long and was often seen as a favour rather than a punishment. However, the future Pope’s request for modifications was rejected at the time. The 1998 letter was previewed in the 2


December issue of L’Osservatore Romano. It was part of an 11-page article that then appeared on Saturday in the authoritative Italian Jesuit journal, La Civiltà Cattolica. The article’s author – Archbishop Juan Ignacio


Way forward indicated for SSPX dialogue


POPE BENEDICT’Smost recent statements on the “hermeneutic of renewal” regarding the legacy of the Second Vatican Council provide the way forward for the solution of the conflict with the Lefebvrists, according to the offi- cial in charge of the Vatican’s relations with the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt. “In general, the SSPX’s difficulties have to do with the continuity or consistent devel- opment of certain of the council’s


teachings, and of the subsequent papal teaching office in view of the unchanging Magisterium of the Church and tradition,” Mgr Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, told Vatican Radio (German section) last week. In other words, he explained,


what divided the SSPX from the position of the Holy See was the judgement made about the con- tinuity or coherence between certain teachings of the Second


28 | THE TABLET | 11 December 2010


Vatican Council and previous statements of the Magisterium. In Peter Seewald’s recent book


of interviews with Pope Benedict XVI, the Pope appeared to leave open the possibility that council teaching and interpretation could be developed. “To put into practice what was said [at the Second Vatican Council] while remaining within the intrinsic continuity of the faith, is a much more difficult process than the council itself, especially since the council came


into the world in the interpreta- tion devised by the media more than with its own documents,” the Pope said. As far as the liturgy was con-


cerned, the basic question which the SSPX would have to answer was whether the ordinary form of the Roman rite, promulgated by Pope Paul VI, was of itself valid and legitimate. “There can be no doubt or hesitation on this point. The answer must be an indu- bitable ‘yes’,” Mgr Pozzo said.


Cardinal Reinhard Marx. Photo: Reuters


dealt with a case. He had refused to keep on a priest guilty of abuse and had written to him personally to tell him so. Clerical sexual abuse was, however, usually dealt with by the vicar general and not by the archbishop, Ms Westphal emphasised. The report found that the reason why the


church authorities were prepared to leave even serious cases unexamined, ignored the victims and appeared uninterested in their fate, was a misconceived image of the priest- hood and the Church, both of which had to be protected at all costs with public scandal avoided. “This anti-detection priority is in agreement with the lack of any internal church sanctions in the vast majority of cases,” the report says. It also found that priest offenders were often “psychologically and physically weak personalities with conspicuous deficits in maturity” and that homosexual priests were often blackmailed.


Arrieta, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts – claimed that the letter and several other initiatives Joseph Ratzinger promulgated as head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office were proof that Benedict XVI had long sought to take a tough line with errant priests. Archbishop Arrieta notes that a Vatican


commission recently completed a draft document to change the penal procedures found in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. He said Pope Benedict mandated the action in 2007.


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