Richard Milhous Ratzinger

You may recall how critical it was as the Munich pedophile case broke into view that it be shown that Ratzinger had nothing to do with anything that occurred. This was not very plausible given that he chaired the meeting where the child-rapist, Father Hullerman was reassigned, rather than reported to the cops. But the Munich archdiocese's vicar-general, Fr Gerhard Gruber, took full responsibility. At the time, I expressed skepticism of how conveniently a fall-guy was found. It turns out my skepticism was more than warranted:

A former vicar-general in the archdiocese of Munich has claimed that he was pressurised last month into taking the blame for a mistake made 30 years ago by the then Archbishop of Munich, Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict), concerning the case of a paedophile priest.

Fr Gerhard Gruber has now said he did so only after coming under huge pressure from unnamed Catholic Church sources to take responsibility, so as to “take the pope out of the firing line”.

In a letter to a friend, seen by German weekly magazine Der Spiegel , Fr Gruber wrote that he was “begged” in numerous phone calls and after receiving a prepared statement by fax for him to sign. The magazine said Fr Gruber expresses unhappiness in the letter at being given the sole blame in public.

The cover-up continues. And Benedict is at the heart of it. To commit a de facto crime by allowing a child-rapist to go on and abuse and rape more children, and when confronted with the evidence, to pressure a minion to take full responsibility ... well it's positively Bush-like isn't it? No wonder they got along so well.