As a clarification of exactly what Pope Benedict is accused of, it is of not responding to a request from the Archbishop of Milwaukee, for a Canonical Court, the vehicle by which a priest is laicized (defrocked), for Lawrence Murphy, who was accused and in fact admitted to abusing male children from 1950 to 1978 in the St. John School for the Deaf in Wisconsin. There are no substantiated charges against Ratzinger when he was Archbishop of Munich.
The American charges were brought in 1998, long after the priest had retired and in fact was terminally ill. Murphy had written Card. Ratzinger, then Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which had supervision over these courts, stating he was remorseful and repentent, and of no further threat or even in contact with children, and begged to die as a priest.
The Cardinal did not respond to the Archbishop's request, and the priest died within a few months. It is unlikely the case would have been fully resolved before his death in any event. In hindsight that was a mistake, and it is unlikely such quarter on the grounds of compassion will be applied again. The lingering pain, and ruined lives, demand a full hearing and adjudication before the Church's justice system.
But, that is a long way from the case of Primate of Ireland, Card. Sean Brady, who in 1975 was personally involved with swearing abuse victims to silence and re-assigning an offending priest, who subsequently abused others.
The abuse scandal is being investigated by Cardinal Pell, a no nonsense, straight talking Australian, who would make a good plant manager if he wasn't a bishop, and will likely recommend that Brady be be sacked within weeks, along with several other Irish Bishops, and undoubtedly Benedict will follow through on that.
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