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Georg Ratzinger, “i Wasn’t Aware of Any Sexual Abuse”

By Andrea Tornielli
Vatican Insider
July 20, 2017

http://www.lastampa.it/2017/07/20/vaticaninsider/eng/news/georg-ratzinger-i-wasnt-aware-of-any-sexual-abuse-i32tf2OoiWZKt3QWLtwh7J/pagina.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Georg Ratzinger

"I wasn’t aware of any sexual abuse". This was stated by Georg Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI’ brother, when he was heard during the investigation into the abuses of the Regensburg Cathedral choirboys from the post-war period to the early 1990s. As the German state is no longer required to investigate time-barred crimes, it was the diocese, and therefore the Catholic Church itself, to promote and finance an independent investigation, which also encouraged victims to give information anonymously.



As it is known, the results presented in a solid 440-page report by lawyer Ulrich Weber, unveils the shocking number of 547 children victims of violence, 67 of whom were sexually abused. The names of some of the abusers, who are now dead, were already known. These facts, which cannot be underestimated or minimized, should however be put in context, namely that for decades corporal punishments were common throughout all schools in the country.



The stories of some of the victims are gruesome because they speak of both excessive punishments but also of ill-treatment at the limit of sadism and of repeated sexual abuse, which took place in the school as well as in the dormitory where the "Cathedral sparrows" lived. The choirboys told that the ones responsible of the blood-beatings were also responsible of the sexual harassment: for this reason, Weber's lawyer suggested that the molesters would get sexually aroused by knocking out the kids.



What does Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, nowadays in his nineties, have to do with all of this? Benedict XVI's brother directed the choir for thirty years, from 1964 to 1994. From the report emerges, though it is not so explicit for privacy issues, that the most serious episodes of sexual abuse took place in the 1950s, when he was not there. Monsignor Georg during his thirty-year career as a director has slapped some of the boys, and has publicly apologized for it seven years ago. He has never been, even remotely, accused of having in any way harassed the boys of the Cathedral. However, he was pulled into the scene because someone said he had told him about what was happening in school.



The names are not cited extensively, but it is clear that when the report talks about "the director of the choir R." it is refereeing to Benedict XVI’ brother. On those pages, it is argued that Mgr. Georg could have pushed for an investigation and have the guilty singled out and brought to justice many years ago. It is stated (page 381 of the report) that Ratzinger was "somewhat closed in his interest in music" and when he became aware of these rumors, he had in fact underestimated them. Some news would have come to the ear of Georg Ratzinger already in 1969, then in 1979 and finally in 1993. In the report, it is noted that "there is no" intervention among the authoritative persons with whom Georg was in contact, an allusion to his brother then-archbishop and cardinal, and the same bishop of Regensburg.



Another page of the report (380, note 2495) confirms Georg Ratzinger’s testimony. Georg stated that he was aware of the excessive violence as a mean of correction but not of any sexual abuse, " I wasn’t aware of any sexual abuse " was what he had publicly announced in 2010 in some interviews.



Some victims point out that Ratzinger "was interested only in music" but "other victims clearly reported that R. had been warned of episodes of violence and criticized his inaction" (p. 378). The word "violence" can mean both physical violence and sexual violence. Lawyer Weber thinks that R. interpreted the accidents as "physical violence" and thus confirms what the brother of the Pope Emeritus said. The report, however, also points out that during an interview, R. confirmed that "he had been told of how the school director L. touched the boys after pulling down their pants. However, he did not quite understand that it was sexual violence"(p 380). The lawyer believes that "Due to his attitude, R. was not whom the boys chose to talk about sexual violence"(380) and a victim recalls that it was "unthinkable" to talk about sex with him as he was so puritan (p. 381).



"Having followed, as an expert, several cases of pedophilia," Sociologist Massimo Introvigne explains to La Stampa, "I don’t find it surprising that, when recalling events that in some cases date back almost fifty years, the victims and Monsignor Ratzinger have different memories. It does not mean that someone is lying: memory is not only selective but it is also influenced by emotions. What a boy would tell, more so in the 1960s, certainly did not have the accuracy of a complaint in a court. The boys may have made more-or-less precise allusions, that Georg Ratzinger interpreted in reference to ill-treatment and not to sexual abuse. "

 

 

 

 

 




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