Cardinal Gerhard Müller has firmly rebuffed Germany’s Bishop Bätzing, after the bishop publicly criticised Pope Leo for not declaring the Catholic Church had a “systemic” problem with abuse.
Penning a lengthy and forthright article, Cdl Müller defended Leo XIV’s comments regarding the nature of sexual abuse in the Church. The Pope had shied away from affirming the suggestion that there was a “systemic” abuse problem in the Church, during an in-flight press conference in September. Instead, he commented that “sexual abuse is first and foremost a human problem.”
