Newly discovered correspondence allegedly incriminates Pope Benedict for cover-up of abuse

The two stories below have come out in the run up to the trial of Father Hullermann in a civil case at the end of March.   

CORRECTIV who have worked on this story with Bavarian Broadcasting are a collective of investigative journalists.  Until the letters are published and the contents considered by the courts, no firm conclusions can be drawn.   They have drawn criticism for their activities

By way of background, the statutes of the Archdiocese do specifically state that the Archbishop takes all the personnel decisions on his own account but this would only apply if he was active in the case when he was Archbishop of Munich up to 1982.

New Vatican document incriminates ex-Pope in Peter H. case

A previously unknown correspondence shows that Joseph Ratzinger, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, knew about Peter H.'s abuses in 1986 at the latest. Despite this, the priest was still employed in pastoral care.

As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and later Pope Benedict XVI had information about the sexual offences committed by the priest Peter H. against children as early as 1986, research by CORRECTIV and BR shows. This emerges from a previously unknown Vatican document that CORRECTIV and Bayerischer Rundfunk were able to view. The former Pope always denied having known Priest H.

Correspondence confirmed: Ratzinger knew of sexual abuse

An exchange of letters from 1986 shows that the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had information about the sexual abuse of former priest H.. At that time, the deputy vicar general of the archdiocese of Munich and Freising, Bernhard Egger, had asked the Vatican in a letter in August 1986 for permission for the then priest H. to celebrate Mass with grape juice instead of wine because of "absolute alcohol dependency".

Shortly before, H. had been sentenced to probation for multiple child abuse at the Ebersberg District Court. The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, when asked by CORRECTIV and BR, said the letter from the Archdiocese of Munich also mentions the sexual offences against children "committed while intoxicated."

Priest was appointed to pastoral care despite abuse

This proves that Ratzinger had information about the multiple sexual abuse of the convicted perpetrator H., who at the time was to continue to be employed in pastoral care. Ratzinger's permission at the request of the archdiocese was given in writing and was personally signed by Ratzinger, who was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican at the time.

Ratzinger stated that he had not been involved in the case of H.

Ever since the scandal surrounding the priest Peter H. had become public in 2010, the responsibility of the late Pope emeritus Benedict XVI for H. had been the subject of public discussion. The former priest H. is said to have sexually abused at least 29 boys in the Dioceses of Essen and Munich over decades - covered up by high churchmen.

They repeatedly used H. in parishes, although the abuse was known and noted within the church. In 1980, H. had been transferred to Munich; the Archbishop of Munich and Freising at the time was Joseph Ratzinger. Shortly before his death, he stated that he had not been involved in the H. case.

Responsibility for abuse plays a role in civil proceedings

One year after the exchange of letters, the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising appointed H. to the Upper Bavarian parish of Garching an der Alz, where H. was again abusing boys. The late ex-pope's responsibility for H. also plays a role in civil proceedings before the Traunstein Regional Court at the end of March. Andreas Perr, a victim of H. in the Upper Bavarian parish, is suing H. and also the heirs of the late Pope.

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According to media research, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger already had information about the sexual offences of priest H. in 1986. The deputy vicar general of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, Bernhard Egger, had asked the Vatican in a letter in August 1986 for permission for the then priest H. to celebrate mass with grape juice instead of wine due to "absolute alcohol dependency", the "Bayerischer Rundfunk" and the research centre "Correctiv" reported on Tuesday. H. had previously been sentenced to probation for multiple child abuse at the Ebersberg district court.

The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising had informed "Correctiv" and BR at their request that the letter also mentioned sexual offences against children "committed while under the influence of alcohol". According to the letter, Ratzinger replied to the Archdiocese in writing and signed the letter with permission personally, but he did not mention the sexual offences. "This proves that Ratzinger had information about the multiple sexual abuse of the convicted perpetrator H., who was to continue to be employed in parish pastoral care at the time," the BR report says.

Ratzinger emphasised throughout his life that he had known nothing of the accusations.

The abuse report by the law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) on sexualised violence in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising devotes a special volume of 350 pages to the H. case. The investigation, published in January 2022, accuses the future Pope Benedict XVI, who was Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982, of personal misconduct in several cases. A spokesman for the archdiocese confirmed to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) on Tuesday that the correspondence that has now become known had also been submitted to the chancellery. The priest is alleged to have sexually abused boys in the Diocese of Essen and in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising over decades and to have been transferred again and again. In June 2022, H. was dismissed from the clergy.

The spokesman of the victims' initiative, "Eckiger Tisch", Matthias Katsch, meanwhile called on the Vatican to hand over its own files. The research showed how important it would be to evaluate the files stored in the Vatican on thousands of cases of abuse from all over the world, he told dpa. The correspondence between Ratzinger and the archdiocese also shows why the church resists independent investigations: It knows that the evidence of guilt and responsibility of its bishops and popes can be found there.

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