Pope Benedict XVI blames sex abuse scandal on 1960s sexual revolution, claims “homosexual cliques” were in seminaries

Benedict provided no basis for his claim about the cliques, which he said “acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate in the seminaries.” Instead, he described a seminary in southern Germany where aspiring priests lived with candidates for the lay ministry, some of whom were married or had girlfriends, and Benedict said, “The climate in this seminary could not provide support for preparation to the priestly vocation.”The one-time head of the church also claimed that pedophilia was “diagnosed as allowed and appropriate” during the ’60s. The essay immediately raised eyebrows, seeming to interfere with or even contradict Pope Francis’ own efforts to confront one of the most critical issues facing the church.
One church historian called Benedict’s essay “catastrophically irresponsible” because it conflicted with Francis’ own efforts to lead the church out of the sex abuse crisis. Benedict in 2013 had said he planned to retire to a lifetime of penance and prayer and would leave Francis to guide the church.U.S. church analysts said the essay, published in the German monthly Klerusblatt and translated into English in several Catholic news outlets, was both flawed in content and problematic on a universal church level, exacerbating existing divisions in the church that have emerged between supporters of Francis and Catholics nostalgic for Benedict’s doctrine-minded papacy. In his introduction, Benedict said both the Vatican secretary of state and Francis had given him permission to publish it.The Vatican press office confirmed it was written by Benedict. In the essay, Benedict traced the start of the clergy abuse crisis to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, citing the appearance of sex in films in his native Bavaria.He also blamed the crisis on failures of moral theology in that era, as well as church laws that gave undue protection to accused priests. Benedict wrote that during the 1980s and 1990s, “the right to a defense (for priests) was so broad as to make a conviction nearly impossible.”As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict reformed those laws in 2001 to make it easier to remove priests who abused children. Benedict took a hard line against clerical sex abuse as the Vatican’s conservative doctrine chief, and later as pope, defrocking hundreds of priests accused of raping and molesting children.”Why did pedophilia reach such proportions? Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God,” he wrote. Francis has blamed the scandal on a clerical culture in the church that raises priests above the laity.Villanova University theologian Massimo Faggioli said the essay was thin in its analysis by effectively attributing the scandal to the sexual revolution. He said it omitted key cases, such as the Legion of Christ founder’s pedophilia, which began well before then.