Irish Examiner view: Catholic cover-up

Pope implicated in failure to stop four clergymen accused of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Munich

Benedict XVI: Allowing him to retain the  title of  Pope Emeritus would dishonour the victims of clerical sex abuse.

IT is shocking but hardly surprising that an inquiry has found that former Pope Benedict XVI failed to stop four clergymen accused of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Munich. 

Pope Emeritus Benedict — formerly Cardinal Josef Ratzinger — was the archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, the law firm that carried out the inquiry, reveals that in one case, a paedophile priest named Peter Hullermann was transferred to Munich from Essen in western Germany where he had been accused of abusing an 11-year-old boy. 

In 1986, by which time Benedict was in the Vatican, he was convicted of molesting more children and given a suspended prison sentence.

In 2013 when Benedict became the first pope to abdicate in 600 years, he was allowed to live in the Vatican and assume the title Pope Emeritus as an honour. 

In light of the fact that last June Pope Francis changed the Catholic Church's laws to explicitly criminalise sexual abuse and decree that bishops must take action when a complaint is made, allowing him to retain that title would dishonour the victims.