ROME — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said Monday that he’d given an incorrect statement to a law firm conducting a clerical abuse inquiry and admitted that he’d been present at a 1980 meeting in which church officials discussed a predator priest.
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Benedict attributed the earlier falsehood, which he contributed as part of a lengthy testimony, to a “mistake in the editorial processing.”
“He would like to emphasize that this did not occur out of bad intentions,” said Monday’s statement, released by Benedict’s personal secretary, Archbishop Georg G？nswein, and published by the Vatican’s official news arm.
German investigation accuses Benedict XVI of ‘wrongdoing’ in handling of abuse cases while archbishop of Munich
Benedict’s admission came four days after the release of a church-commissioned report on decades of abuse in the Munich archdiocese, where the eventual pontiff — then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — served between 1977 and 1982 as archbishop. The report alleged that Benedict mishandled four cases, including one involving the Rev. Peter Hullermann, who faced abuse allegations in another diocese and then was transferred to Munich to undergo therapy.
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Hullermann continued to abuse after being put back into service, and he was given a suspended jail sentence in 1986. He remained in the church until 2010, still in contact with minors.
Lawyers from Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, which compiled the 1,900-page report, had said Benedict’s earlier statement about not being present at a 1980 meeting to discuss Hullermann was not plausible.
Benedict, on Monday, said that in the meeting no decision was made about whether to return the priest to pastoral duties.
“Rather, only the request to provide him with accommodations during his therapeutic treatment in Munich was granted,” Benedict’s statement said.
The Munich report addresses some 500 abuse cases over a period of more than seven decades. But it is the narrow window in which Benedict served as archbishop that has attracted the most attention, because it shows the one-day involvement of the pope in handling clerical abuse cases well before the scandal erupted publicly across the Catholic empire.
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Benedict, after his tenure as archbishop, became a top figure in the Vatican, overseeing the powerful department that handles abuse cases and discipline. Then, as pontiff, he made some progress against the scourge — defrocking hundreds of predator priests — but advocates said his steps were far too modest and did not address the systemic nature of the problem. For instance, he did not work to discipline bishops who helped to cover up cases or shield abusers.
When Hullermann’s case became public in 2010, the Munich archdiocese placed responsibility on the then-vicar general, Gerhard Gruber, for the decision to return the priest to active duty. But Gruber told the group leading the latest probe that he had been “pressured” to assume sole responsibility. He said he “does not doubt” that Benedict had knowledge of Hullermann’s case.
Benedict retired as pope in 2013, the first pontiff to abdicate in some 600 years. He now lives at a monastery in the Vatican.
His statement from Monday said he was continuing to work his way through the report — an endeavor that will take time, “in view of his age,” and the length of document.
“Currently, he is reading the [report’s contents], which fill him with shame and pain over the suffering that the was inflicted upon the victims,” the statement said.
Vanessa Guinan-Bank in Berlin contributed to this report.