Benedict’s Mea Culpa, by Stephen P. White

As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI nears the end of his long and extraordinary life, the tussling over his legacy has already begun in earnest. In his native Germany, the “Synodal Way” appears intent on erasing fifty years of magisterial interpretation of the Second Vatican Council – a reading for which Joseph Ratzinger is as responsible as anyone save, perhaps, St. John Paul II. The Synodal Way is a sort of referendum on his life’s work and legacy.

And then there’s the report, published last month, on the history of clerical sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising, the result of an investigation conducted by a German law firm on behalf of the archdiocese. …