Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI gestures at the Munich Airport before his departure to Rome, June 22, 2020. | PHOTO: Sven Hoppe/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Vatican City, Holy See — Former pope Benedict XVI, accused in a German report Thursday of failing to stop clerical child sex abuse, is shocked by the issue but must examine the text, his spokesman said.
“The Pope Emeritus, as he has already repeated several times during the years of his pontificate, expresses his shock and shame at the abuse of minors committed by clerics,” his assistant Georg Ganswein said in a statement Thursday.
He added that the 94-year-old ex-pontiff had no knowledge of the content of the 1,000-page report until Thursday afternoon, and would examine it with the “necessary attention” in the coming days.
A damning independent report commissioned by the German church concluded Thursday that Benedict knowingly failed to take action to stop four priests accused of child sex abuse in Munich in the 1980s.
Benedict — who was the archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982 — had denied any responsibility, said the lawyer for the German firm that compiled the report, Martin Pusch of Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW).
He added that experts do not consider this credible.
Benedict in 2013 became the first pope to step down from the role in 600 years and now lives a secluded life in a former convent inside the grounds of the Vatican.
In words that echoed those of Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni issued earlier in the day, Ganswein said Benedict expressed his “personal closeness and his prayers for all the victims, some of whom he has met during his apostolic journeys.”
Bruni emphasized that the Vatican must still examine the report, “the contents of which are not currently known”, but reiterated its “sense of shame and remorse for the abuse of minors committed by clerics.”
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