Ratzinger dealt with the case himself

Oh gee surprise surprise what do you know – 

Germany’s Catholic Church systematically covered up cases of sexual abuse within its own ranks for several decades, according to an expert study commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.

Total cognitive dissonance. Religion makes people good, and it especially makes them compassionate. Any fule kno this, so it must be true. But if people are compassionate…they don’t conceal cases of sexual violence against children, do they. Compassionate people are motivated to do other things, such as making sure no more children will be the objects of sexual violence. Compassionate people are concerned with the suffering of other people as opposed to themselves – their first impulse is to protect victims as opposed to victimizers. Their first and main concern is not to protect themselves and/or their colleagues from exposure and prosecution at the expense of the current victims and the future victims.

“Only 26 priests were convicted for sexual offences,” Westpfahl explained to reporters, saying she found 365 files containing evidence that “acts of abuse had taken place in an almost commonplace manner.”

The incriminating evidence Westpfahl found among 13,200 available files implicated 159 priests, 15 deacons, 96 religion teachers and six pastoral employees, with rural areas particularly affected.

The victims’ suffering often remained a mystery, she said, as the reports usually discussed abuse in coy euphemisms.

All those priests and deacons and religious teachers turn out to have been like everyone else, only more so – selfish, self-protecting, greedy, and ruthless. They turn out to have used children as if they were inflatable dolls, and to have lied a blue streak to protect their jobs and their continued ability to rape children. What do you know.

Westpfahl also said that the period of 1977 to 1982, when Pope Benedikt XVI – then Archbishop Josef Ratzinger – headed up the archdiocese, was particularly poorly documented.

In this timeframe, she only found one document, regarding an abuse case. Ratzinger had dealt with the case himself, ordering that an abusive priest be removed from his parish, she said.

The article doesn’t spell it out, but that sounds as if Ratzinger presided over copious destruction of incriminating documents.

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