Destruction of Documents: Outstanding quotes from Munich Diocese where Pope was bishop

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Some revealing quotes about Pope Benedict’s former Archbishopric of Munich**:

"Destruction of documents took place in considerable measure, and wide-ranging collections of documents were stored outside the Palace in private dwellings, and thus made susceptible to manipulation."

"Vital documentation, affecting for example former activities of the person under investigation or the reasons for a change of diocese in the case of incardinated priests, was missing in most cases. There was no reliable, central registration of the documentation, so that, again and again in the course of investigation, documents or parts thereof appeared surprisingly at the most varied places."

"With regard to the misconduct in question, namely the sexual offences, it must be emphasised that euphemistic, trivialising language was used, which, from the point of view of the experts, often gave no more than an inkling of the complete extent of the offence and its effect on the victim."

Above quotes come from "IV. The procedure - points to emphasise." Here is more:

A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF UNDETECTED CASES

The Munich Report says they were limited by "the regrettable state of what was available. And this, by the way, is one of the reasons why the already mentioned, considerable number of undetected cases must be assumed."

The Church "has not stood up for the rights of the children entrusted to it, and thus shares the responsibility for the fact that the victimised children, through the attitude adopted towards them, have often been exposed to the stress of childhood isolation in addition to that of the offence itself."

(Man, why haven't we heard more about these collateral effects of the abuse in the USA?)

WOW

The Munich Report points out the Church's contempt for victims:

"From the point of view of the experts, the contempt for the victims becomes apparent in its most crass form in the cases in which priest who was known to have committed a sexual offence against a child was employed in another position without the background information being revealed."

That comtenmpt is "a misinterpretation of how the clergy see themselves; one that, sworn to a brotherly community, seeks for a justification of intolerable hushing-up in a defence of their own class that is reckless of the results."

Transfering priests to places where they could continue to rape children:

"was not only permitted, but ordered, and thus further victims were consciously reckoned with. This unjustifiable treatment of the victims was accompanied by inadequate preventive care of the respective offenders. Every effort was made, on their behalf and also on behalf of the Church, to avoid public perception of the offence and– as they thought– a scandal.

The Report concludes:

"It is of particular importance in this context to have expertbased training for priests (and lay people, too, by the way) in dealing with children and adolescents."

But I think you are better off keeping your kids close to home and out of Catholic institutions...
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** Report can be read in total at

http://www.erzbistum-muenchen.de/media/media14425720.PDF

and was

"prompted by the wide public discussion, in particular at the beginning of 2010, of cases of abuse within the Roman Catholic Church, the leadership of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising decided to enlist external expert assistance in registering, analysing and evaluating relevant occurrences in the period from 1945 to 2009."

Title of the report is:

"Sexual and other physical assaults by priests, deacons and other pastoral workers in the field of jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising between 1945 and 2009 / Fact-finding– Evaluation– Consequences of 02/12/2010"

Report was released to news media in March 2010, and released in English Dec. 2, 2010.

Pope Benedict was Joseph Ratzinger, Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.
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