-- Rome -- In a letter published by Holy See Press Office on Thursday, Pope Francis rejected Cardinal Reinhard Marx’s resignation as head of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.
Cardinal Marx had offered his resignation in a “confidential and personal” letter that was subsequently released to the press with the permission of the Pope.
“It is important to me to share the responsibility for the catastrophe of the sexual abuse by Church officials over the past decades,” Cardinal Marx explained in his letter. The crisis has revealed not only “personal failures and administrative mistakes, but also institutional or ‘systemic’ failure,” he maintained.
