No wonder he isn't looking for widescale resignations in the irish church.

Now Pope linked to child abuse cover-up
He was in charge of diocese when pervert was transferred

By John Cooney and Richard Owen
Saturday March 13 2010
Pope Benedict was personally drawn into the sex abuse scandals last night after revelations of a cover-up in the Archdiocese of Munich in Germany the 1980s, when he was in charge there.

His former archdiocese acknowledged it transferred a suspected paedophile priest while Pope Benedict was in charge -- as criticism mounted over a 2001 Vatican directive he penned instructing bishops to keep abuse cases secret.

The Pope agreed to send a priest for therapy in 1980 for allegedly forcing an 11-year-old boy to engage in oral sex. The priest was secretly shifted from Essen to Munich, which was Cardinal Ratzinger's See.

It emerged that Cardinal Ratzinger gave his approval of a decision by his archdiocese to give the priest refuge in a rectory in the capital city of Bavaria while the therapy took place.

Even more damaging for the Pope in the current spate of cover-up scandals is that the priest, identified as 'H', was later convicted of sexually abusing minors after he returned to pastoral work in nearby Grafing.

In 1986, four years after Cardinal Ratzinger moved to Rome to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Fr H was given an 18-month suspended prison sentence and fined about €2,000.

Although there have been no further formal charges against Fr H, commentators in Rome last night pointed out that Cardinal Ratzinger in his capacity of dealing with all sexual complaints against paedophile priests would have known the full background to the cover-up.

The church has been accused of a cover-up after over 300 allegations of child abuse by German Catholic priests.

The scandal broke in January but the claims, which continue to emerge, span three decades.

Critics say that priests were redeployed to other parishes rather than dismissed when they were found to be abusing children.

The revelations come as the Pope faces increasing criticism for a 2001 Vatican letter he sent to all bishops advising them that all cases of sexual abuse of minors must be forwarded to his then-office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and that the cases were to be subject to pontifical secret.

However, the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising last night rallied to play down Pope Benedict's role in the scandal.

Complaints

A spokesman said that there had been no complaints against the priest during the therapy at a church community in Munich.

It said that the decision to let him continue working in Grafing was taken by Gerhard Gruber, now 81, who was vicar general of the archdiocese.

The Vatican said that Monsignor Gruber had taken "full responsibility" for the priest's move back into pastoral work but did not comment further.

Mgr Gruber said that the Pope, who was made a cardinal in 1977, had not been aware of his decision because there were a thousand priests in the diocese at the time and he had left many decisions to lower-level officials.

"The cardinal could not deal with everything," he said. "The repeated employment of H in pastoral duties was a serious mistake . . . I deeply regret that this decision led to offences against youths. I apologise to all those who were harmed."

He did not indicate whether the convicted paedophile would be allowed to continue working in the church.

The Pope was Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982 and then moved to Rome as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a post that he held until his election as pontiff five years ago after the death of John Paul II. Fr H worked in an old people's home for two years after his conviction. He then moved to the town of Garching.

In May 2008 he was removed from his duties in Garching and was not allowed to work with young people. He still works in the diocese, according to the newspaper 'Suddeutsche Zeitung', which broke the story.

How is this story only breaking now?

Hmm, I think in part while the Irish priests raped anything that moved in ireland, england, the usa and africa, the germans mostly restricted themselves to smaller numbers of the children of wealthy conservative germans, who mightn't have been half as quick to stand up and admit that they'd been abused, as the irish victims of institutional abuse. You don't hear too many cases eminating from Irish jesuit schools either.

So what do we have? Cardinal Ratzinger received an allegation that a priest had committed sexual abuse. He took the priest out of active ministry. His vicar-general reinstated the priest without Ratzinger's knowledge. Years after Ratzinger is gone, the priest re-offends.

Sorry, there's no smoking gun to prove that Ratzinger "is linked child abuse cover-up". The story doesn't say there was an actual cover-up, only that a priest whom Ratzinger pulled from active ministry was re-instated.

But Ratzinger should explain exactly why he did not inform the police of the allegations. If you want to land a punch, it's on that point.

The revelations come as the Pope faces increasing criticism for a 2001 Vatican letter he sent to all bishops advising them that all cases of sexual abuse of minors must be forwarded to his then-office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and that the cases were to be subject to pontifical secret.

At the risk of sounding like a disgusting apologist for the cover-up of child abuse, the ignorance of people who keep restating this as evidence for institutional cover-ups is breath-taking. A tiny bit of effortless research would show that the Vatican process is in no way intended to prejudice criminal investigations.

The Vatican reiterated that last week:

Vatican officials said it was important for people to know that the confidentiality imposed on the church's internal handling of abuse cases does not exempt bishops or others from reporting serious facts and accusations to civil authorities. They emphasized that the Vatican document dealt with how church law treats such cases, not as a substitute for civil law, which deals with the crime separately.

"The purpose of 'pontifical secret' here was to respect the rights of the accused and of the witnesses, including the victim, to confidentiality," said one informed Vatican official. He said civil law often has similar provisions to protect confidentiality when a potential crime is under investigation.

"But this is an ecclesiastical law. It does not affect the duty to obey civil law," he added.

Whether that is right or not, it is not true to say the 2001 instruction forms part of the cover-up.

I'm not aware of any damning document from the Vatican that might prove that orders to cover up came from Rome. That doesn't mean, however, that there was not a culture of silence in the Church.

After almost a decade of Boston breaking, the Vatican, including the pope, are still not getting it that the scandal is not so much about the abuses than the cover-ups and machinations — that institutional culture in the RCC — which facilitated the abuse. The statements still condemn the abusers (and, rightly, now place an emphasis on the suffering of the abuse surviviors), but make reference only to the supposedly inadvertent failings among bishops.

At the same time, the Vatican is not accepting the resignation of three bishops implicated in cover-ups in Dublin.

So the whole saga is obscured by the Vatican's utter cluelessness (or perhaps wilful obfuscation) as well as a scattershot approach among the Catholic Church's critics in the media.

Do you think that "cover-up" is not a term reasonably applied to someone knowing and not reporting such a serious crime to the police?

Do you think that "cover-up" is not a term reasonably applied to someone knowing and not reporting such a serious crime to the police?

It certainly is, when the crime was committed by someone under your authority and responsibility, with whom you share legal accountability. But for the 'ordinary citizen' you could easily construct a scenario where not reporting a crime didn't amount precisely to a cover-up (without necessarily implying it were morally defensible either).

A quick word from the ground here in Germany. Ratzinger's case notwithstanding, the current wave of allegations - heaped upon Ratzinger's allowing the holocaust-denier Williamson back into the Church last year - has led to the biggest crisis the German Roman-Catholic church has been in since the Nazi era. There's a wave of exits from the Church, there's another case in the media every day, the line within many of these monastery schools is still "We're going to deal with it ourselves". The highest-ranking German bishop has started to argue with the government's Minister of Justice, one other bishop has blamed it all on the Sexual Revolution of 1968...It's one big horror scenario come true for the Church.

On the other hand, the head of the German Catholic Lay(voc?) Association along with some second-rank bishops has called for an end of celibacy for priests. This sounds far more sensible than the official line which has been "We're going to take a closer look at who we're going to ordain". As if the choice was so big.

Do you think that "cover-up" is not a term reasonably applied to someone knowing and not reporting such a serious crime to the police?

I'd not use that terminology without knowing the full circumstances of the case. That does not imply that I endorse the act of knowing about a crime and not reporting it.

The 1960s sexual revolution argument is a fashionable defence at the moment. It ignores that most abuses pre-date the sexual revolution, or where committed in environments where libertine hippies were not the source of great influence. It's almost as stupid an argument as those who blame clerical celibacy or homosexuality.

G-Man

I actually don't think that clerical celibacy can be left out of this discussion.

The whole position of seeing sexual abstinence as something positive and sexuality as something negative, limited to reproduction, substantiates itself in clergical celibacy. Those who can keep their sex drive in check can, thus, achieve a higher rank, a greater closeness to God than the rest of the faithful.

So there are those who want to become a priest, but have problems with obligatory celibacy. Problems which they may realize only after some time at the job. So they'll look for ways to act it out. Most will succeed in a way nobody is harmed by. Some will not.

Is that so far-fetched?
And please, no argument that there's no statistical evidence. The reason there isn't is not due the Church itself.

But the statistics do indicate that among sexual abusers of minors, the percentage of priests to whom obligatory celibacy applies is not higher (and in some categories much lower) than among people to whom no such obligation is attached. That's a statistical fact (which, of course, does not mitigate the scandal in any way and cannot be used as an excuse by the defenders of the RCC).

The demand for celibacy may well have led some priests to abuse minors. But in these cases, might they have committed sexual abuses even if they were not required to be celibate or were not priests? We don't really know enough about that.

One can discuss the possible effects of obligatory celibacy, but in absence of data that suggests a link between celibacy and sexual abuse, we're just fishing. And we certainly don't have enough to ascribe the incidence of abuse to celibacy.

And could you please edit your post to delete the use of my first name. Especially in a discussion on this subject matter, I'd prefer not to be instantly identifiable.

G.Man wrote:


So what do we have? Cardinal Ratzinger received an allegation that a priest had committed sexual abuse. He took the priest out of active ministry. His vicar-general reinstated the priest without Ratzinger's knowledge. Years after Ratzinger is gone, the priest re-offends.

Sorry, there's no smoking gun to prove that Ratzinger "is linked child abuse cover-up". The story doesn't say there was an actual cover-up, only that a priest whom Ratzinger pulled from active ministry was re-instated.



No...

I still can't see the bit where it says "and reported allegations of child abuse to the Police"

The problem with benny is not primarily that the priest went onto reoffend. The problem is that he knew the priest had been accused of abuse, but did not report him. That he went on to abuse again only compounds the situation. He wouldn't have abused that kid if the pope had done what was obviously the right thing.

i also don't see any reason to believe that a man so wedded to the concept of an institutional church protecting its own to protect itself, is necessarily telling the truth when he says he didn't know about this priest's reappointment. What could cause more damage to the church than the pope being forced to resign>? I'd like to see some very convincing evidence and not some flunky throwing himself on a hand grenade.

Oh shit. This is going to be a thread where I'll have to restate everything, and then have some cunt re-enact the putative rape of my son, isn't it?

TMK, surely onus for providing hard evidence rests with the accusers. As I understand, Ratzinger took the guy out of circulation. He was put back into circulation after Ratzinger was gone. If you think that these are lies, then you need to offer more than a hunch.

As for why it wasn't reported, there might be several reasons. What was the nature of the abuse? What kind of sexual abuse did German courts in the late '70s prosecute? Did the family report the crime to the police?

Of course I suspect that the case was poorly handled, and that Ratzinger might not come out of it well. I'll happily call it a cover-up should there be more information available. But in the meanwhile, I don't think one can base a whole argument on a sketchy newspaper report.

Hmm, I don't think that quite covers it though gman. Ratzinger didn't take the guy out of circulation. He gave him shelter away from where the offences were known about, they knew that the priest was a rapist because they were giving him therapy, and raping children was a crime back in the the 70's, I reckon the german police would have had something to say about that if they were told. He didn't tell anyone etc.

The problem ultimately is that the pope is the sort of man that didn't think that a child rapist should be put in jail. The sort of man who puts the church ahead ahead of children like that a) can't be trusted to tell the truth and b) can't be trusted to handle any of this mess c) can't be trusted to provide any moral leadership on anything ever.

There's a fucking enormous scandal after exploding in ireland, where it appears that cardinal brady, way back in 1975 interviewed two 11 year old children to investigate the activities of Father Brendan smyth, the wilt chamberlain of child rape. Anyway after investigating their complaints, he got the two children to sign a confidentiality agreement.

This appears to have been a crime. instead of telling the police about brendan smyth (who the church were well aware of) they moved him around, and he went to america where he went on a rampage, before eventually the efforts to extradite him from the republic to the north bizarrely lead to the end of a government.

Anyway. He's hiding behind the If I had known then what we know now.... defence, and that is just not going to work. He's saying that he's not going to resign. However he also recently said that if he did anything that directly or indirectly lead to a child being harmed he'd resign. how about protecting one of the most prolific child abusers of the 20th century.

He gave a rather sickening interview to morning ireland this morning where he tried to talk his way out of it, but a spokesman for the abuse victims completely demolished his excuses afterwards. We really are reaching the endgame here.

G.Man wrote:
He took the priest out of active ministry.

Gosh. Harsh. That would have taught him a lesson.

RTE are leading their news bulletins with an interview with the lecturer in canon law in maynooth (the irish priest factory university) where he says that a) the cardinal wasn't under any legal obligation to say anything b) that he wasn't wrong to do what he did.

It seems that they intend to go down with all guns blazing, blasting away at any part of themselves they can see.

Oh dear, it appears that the expert in canon law said that a) the cardinal would have been violating his responsibilities as a priest if he had informed the police (as he was carrying out a secret investigation) and b) that the police were the ones who were negligent for not catching brendan smyth sooner. This is the first story on the lunchtime.

good god.

So, just to simplify (being all simplistic and that), is the argument here that allegations of a crime don't need to be dealt with by the police if there's a comparable judicial body (the RC Church) to deal with them? Is the argument here that the RCC has equal legal standing to the police?

not quite. The argument here is that the cardinal's duty was to his superior. his job was to gather the information, swear the victims to secrecy (thereby conspiring to pervert the course of justice) and to pass the information on to his superior. the superior was to decide what to happen, and it wasn't his responsibility what happened next.

here is a pretty good explanation of their thinking.

This is starting to spiral out of all control now. this guy from maynooth may almost singlehandedly wiped out any hope of a way out of this for the church. He just revealed to everyone how the church really thinks.

Brendan smyth was apparently moved away from Rome and sent back to Ireland in 1948 because of his rapey ways. So they knew that they had a serial paedophile on their hands in rome over 60 years ago.

And just so that nobody is in any doubt that this festering boil of the arse of humanity needs lanced,some sections the First Church of Liars Thieves and Perverts are calling for their flock to help financially compensate the victims of abuse...

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0302/abuse.html

Scum

Subhuman scum.