Pedophilia not on his radar
Pedophilia cases started mounting in Vatican files in the 1980s. But now, as head of church discipline, Ratzinger was primarily focused on silencing priests or liberation theologians, such as the Brazilian Leo*nardo Boff, who tried to empower farmers and peasants. The 1990s brought strictures against abortion, gay rights, same-sex marriage, contraception, and promotion of abstinence and celibacy – just as US bishops were reporting hundreds of child abuse cases, but getting little clarity on how to handle them.
His vision for reforming the Catholic Church was often so all-absorbing that pedophilia got swept under the Vatican carpet, sources say. At the same time, a crackdown on Vatican II - the controversial three-year papal council in the mid-1960s - amplified a culture of fear, secrecy, and hierarchy. "Many rules and codes came down, but efforts to talk 'up' were thwarted," says a Jesuit official in Germany with knowledge of the issue.
Pope Benedict XVI's 30-year campaign to reassert conservative Catholicism
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