UNITED STATES
NBC News
‘Woefully inadequate’ or a ‘great reformer’: Child sex abuse crisis overshadows Benedict’s legacy
By Miranda Leitsinger, Staff Writer, NBC News
As Pope Benedict XVI’s prepares to step down, his legacy is being viewed through the prism of how he handled the child sex abuse crisis, with some observers saying he dealt with it aggressively while others calling his response to the scandals “woefully inadequate.”
During Benedict’s eight-year papacy, thousands of people came forward to claim that had been raped or molested by priests as children, and that bishops had covered it up.
As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, it was Benedict’s old office that dealt with abuse cases, yet he never admitted failure by himself or of the Vatican, and never punished bishops who ignored or covered up the abuse.
“It’s hard to escape the fact that his biggest challenge was the sex abuse crisis and it really didn’t get better during his papacy,” said Michael D’Antonio, author of the upcoming book “Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal.” “And in fact, one can see that the church declined in moral authority, especially in the developed world and that includes places like Ireland and Belgium, which were until a few years ago the most Catholic and the most conservatively Catholic countries in the world. And all of this, I really think is traceable to his failure.”
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