Essay by 91-year-old dubbed ‘catastrophically irresponsible’ for undermining reforms
… Benedict traced the start of the crisis to the 1960s, citing the appearance of sex in films in his native Bavaria and the formation of “homosexual cliques” in seminaries, “which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate”. He also attributed it to failures in moral theology in that era. …
… Church historian Christopher Bellitto questioned if Benedict, who turns 92 next week, was being manipulated by others. He said the essay omitted the critical conclusions that arose from the pope’s February sexual abuse summit in Rome, including that “abusers were priests along the ideological spectrum, that the abuse predated the 1960s, that it is a global and not simply western problem, that homosexuality is not the issue in pedophilia”.
“It is catastrophically irresponsible, because it creates a counter-narrative to how Francis is trying to move ahead based on the 2019 summit,” he told Associated Press in an email. “The essay essentially ignores what we learned there.”