Ex-pope Benedict failed to act in four child abuse cases: German church probe
Updated 1.15pm Former pope Benedict XVI failed to stop four clergymen accused of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Munich, the law firm that carried out a key probe said on Thursday. The ex-pontiff - who was the archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982 - has "strictly" denied any responsibility, said lawyer Martin Pusch of Westpfahl Spilker Wastl which was tasked by the church to carry out the probe. But the experts do not consider this credible, he added. Two of the cases involved clergymen who had committed several proven acts of abuse but were allowed to continue with pastoral duties, Pusch said. An interest in the abuse victims was "not recognisable" in Benedict, he said. In one case, a now-notorious paedophile priest named Peter Hullermann was transferred to Munich from Essen in western Germany where he had been accused of abusing an 11-year-old boy. Hullermann was reassigned to pastoral duties despite his history. In 1986, by which time Benedict had been transferred to the Vatican, he was convicted of molesting more children and given a suspended prison sentence. Even after the conviction, he continued to work with children for many years and his case...