In a surprise statement, pope emeritus Benedict XVI yesterday claimed that in his time as pontiff he had never tried to hide clerical sex abuse crimes.
Benedict (86), who resigned as pope in February and was replaced by Pope Francis, made his remarks in the context of an open letter in yesterday's Rome daily, La Repubblica, to mathematician, writer and atheist, Piergiorgio Odifreddi.
Replying to criticism regarding clerical child sex abuse, Pope Benedict writes: "With regard to what you write about the abuse of young people by priests, I can only, as you know well, express my profound consternation. I have never tried to hide these things. It is a matter of great suffering for us that the power of evil can penetrate right into the inner world of the faith. On the one hand, we have to carry this burden and, on the other, we have to do everything possible to guarantee that similar cases do not happen again."
'Filth'
Benedict goes on to reject the idea that this "filth" is in any way "peculiar to Catholicism" adding that, "according to sociological research", the percentage of priests who are paedophiles is similar to the percentage of paedophiles in other professions. His words cut little ice with victims' lobbies such as the US group, Snap, which commented yesterday:
“Over a clerical career that lasted more than six decades, we can’t think of a single child-molesting bishop, priest, nun, brother or seminarian that Benedict ever exposed . . .
“At the end of the day, facing massive public outrage, Benedict sometimes gave a few speeches and made a few gestures. There was fluff but no substance. There’s not really much at all in Benedict’s record on child abuse that can be defended.”
Although Benedict’s public exchange with Prof Odifreddi covers a vast canvas, dealing with reason and faith, freedom and evil and the historic figure of Jesus Christ, it will probably be his observations on the clerical sex abuse phenomenon that will attract most interest.
Public declaration
However, the fact that he spoke out publicly at all is also intriguing. Last February, four days after his shock resignation, Benedict had seemed to suggest that he was going to withdraw from public life, saying: "Even if I am now retiring, I will always be close to all of you in prayer and you will be close to me, even if I remain hidden from this world."
For most of the last seven months, he has indeed kept a low profile, except when visiting or participating in ceremonies with Pope Francis.
Two weeks ago, Francis was involved in a similar exchange with the former editor of La Repubblica, agnostic Eugenio Scalfari.