{"id":15,"date":"2007-12-29T12:01:54","date_gmt":"2007-12-29T18:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/pope-congratulates-bishop-who-transferred-abuser-15.htm"},"modified":"2007-12-29T12:10:10","modified_gmt":"2007-12-29T18:10:10","slug":"pope-congratulates-bishop-who-transferred-abuser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/pope-congratulates-bishop-who-transferred-abuser-15.htm","title":{"rendered":"Pope Rewards Bishop Who Transferred Abuser"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/font>No, Benedict didn\u2019t congratulate and reward\u00a0Bishop Gerhard M\u00fcller of Regenburg for transferring an abuser, but it didn\u2019t seem to make any difference to Benedict that\u00a0M\u00fcller<\/span> had done so.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contrary to the promises of the German Bishops Conference, M\u00fcller reassigned a pedophile priest: Deutsche Welle <\/a>reports:<\/font><\/p>\n

The Bishop of Fulda, Heinz Josef Algermissen, said his colleague Bishop Gerhard Ludwig M\u00fcller of Regensburg<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> made a mistake in offering a second chance to a priest with a history of pedophilia.<\/font><\/span>
\n“If something has happened in the past with children, a new start should only be allowed at a distance from children,” Algermissen told the Bayern2 radio station.
\nThe priest in question, identified only as Peter K., was found guilty in 2000 of making improper sexual advances toward a minor and received a 12-month suspended sentence. M\u00fcller reassigned the priest to the parish of Riekofen, a village near Regensburg<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, after that sentence expired.
\nPolice then arrested 39-year-old Peter K. on Aug. 30 for suspected sexual offences committed between 2003 and 2006.<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note that these latter offenses occurred after the firestorm of news about sexual abuse in the United States<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>, and that a law enforcement official had strongly recommended against reassigning Peter K.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/font><\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

The German bishops had promised not to reassign pedophiles:<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

In 2002, the German bishops acted to head off such a crisis, with the Conference of Bishops issuing guidelines on pedophilia.\u00a0The needs of the victims were to have priority over the needs of the accused priest.\u00a0<\/font><\/span>Those rules say former pedophiles must not be employed in posts where they may have contact with children.<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

M\u00fcller s<\/span>eems not to have heard of the principle of contradiction:<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/font><\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

M\u00fcller has denied breaching the guideline, saying he had a Christian duty to forgive and had been convinced that the paedophile priest had reformed his ways.<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0M\u00fcller <\/span>weakly defended himself:<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

“Even a bishop can’t rule out the possibility of a priest misusing the freedom [of his position],” M\u00fcller said in an interview with the Catholic news agency KNA. “Priests are not marionettes. They themselves are responsible for what they do with parishioners.”<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Vatican<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> washed its hands of the matter:<\/font><\/p>\n

“It’s a German matter,” DPA news agency quoted a source within Radio Vatican<\/st1:country-region><\/st1:place> as saying. “The bishop will have to justify his behavior to his fellow bishops.”<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But of course his fellow bishops can do nothing; only the Pope can discipline a bishop. Eux-tv<\/a> reports:<\/o:p><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Cardinal Karl Lehmann, chairman of the Conference of German Bishops, said the national body could not do more than establish guidelines and ultimate responsibility was with the dioceses themselves.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But the diocese, like so many American ones, didn\u2019t care:<\/o:p><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

The mother of two boys molested by the priest in 1999 charged that diocesan staff had failed to help the victims, adding: ‘It’s a scandal that this bishop won’t admit to any fault. They don’t care about the children.’<\/font>\u00a0<\/font><\/o:p><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Benedict has acted against abusers, but he has not disciplined this bishop (or any other)\u00a0who tolerated and enabled abuse. Instead, Benedict congratulated\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0M\u00fcller and appointed<\/a> <\/span>him to the Congergation for the Doctrineof the Faith, which also judges priests accused of sexual abuse.\u00a0Bishops around the world notice.<\/font><\/p>\n

\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0No, Benedict didn\u2019t congratulate and reward\u00a0Bishop Gerhard M\u00fcller of Regenburg for transferring an abuser, but it didn\u2019t seem to make any difference to Benedict that\u00a0M\u00fcller had done so.   Contrary to the promises of the German Bishops Conference, M\u00fcller reassigned a pedophile priest: Deutsche Welle reports: The Bishop of Fulda, Heinz Josef Algermissen, said his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clergy-sex-abuse","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}