Against Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. filed a civil lawsuit for covering up abuse cases in the 1980s. The priest now announces that he wants to defend himself in court. It could not remain the only lawsuit that wants to blame the old pope.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. wants to defend himself after a lawsuit against him at the district court in Traunstein. A court spokeswoman confirmed that he had announced his willingness to defend himself. This clears a hurdle on the way to a possible trial. If the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had not taken this step, a so-called default judgment would have been issued - but without the court having dealt with the allegations against him.
In the summer, a man who, according to his own statements, was abused by the convicted pedophile priest H. in Garching an der Alz, brought a civil action, a so-called declaratory action, at the Traunstein District Court. But it is not only directed against Ratzinger, who was archbishop of Munich and Freising at the time when the abuser was transferred to his diocese: the lawsuit also affects the convicted man himself, the archdiocese and Ratzinger's successor in the office of archbishop, Cardinal Friedrich Wetter.
From a criminal point of view, the whole thing no longer has any meaning. Instead, it is about the question of guilt that diocese officials may have taken upon themselves in the case. "If the Catholic Church and the defendants - with the exception of the notorious repeat offender H. - stand by what is constantly publicly declared by all church actors, namely to stand by their Christian obligation and to recognize the injustice that has been committed, the lawsuit will be successful," said the plaintiff's lawyer Andreas Schulz. "If they don't do this, the damage to their reputation will only increase, and the Catholic Church will accelerate the erosion of faith." The lawsuit means a lot to his client: "The healing effect of a successful lawsuit gives him the satisfaction that the church was not able to provide."
Ratzinger is being represented in the matter by a large law firm that claims to be one of the "ten leading commercial law firms" in the world. According to the district court, all four defendants have asked for an extension of the deadline. You now have until January 24 to respond to the content of the lawsuit.
The Garchinger Initiative Sourdough welcomed the step in the process. She is financing the lawsuit and had previously appealed to Ratzinger in an open letter to indicate his willingness to defend himself. "It is important to us at the Sourdough Initiative that it is clarified before a secular court how processes took place both between the dioceses and within the ordinariate, that repeat offenders are moved back and forth and could start afresh at each new point, so to speak, as a blank slate, although allegations had already become known in several parishes," said spokeswoman Rosi Mittermeier.
The pedophile priest H. is one of the central cases in the abuse report presented by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising at the beginning of the year. He was deployed in Garching in the 1980s, although there had been accusations against him in the diocese of Essen - and although the district court in Ebersberg had convicted him of sexual abuse during his time as a clergyman in Grafing near Munich.
In the meantime, it has become known that allegations have also been made against one of H.'s predecessors, who had been deployed in Garching an der Alz a few years before him. It is still unclear whether he also attacked in Garching. According to a spokesman, the Archdiocese, which has called on those affected to report, has not yet received any reports of alleged victims.
The lawsuit at the Traunstein district court may not be the only one that wants to blame the old pope for the cover-up scandal in the church. Attorney Schulz said he was considering filing a civil suit against Ratzinger for a victim in the United States. She refers to the time when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican and as such should have been informed about many cases of abuse: "A civil lawsuit, as there were many there and for which the Catholic Church had to pay three-digit million amounts," described Schulz the possible project.
