Pope Francis said Wednesday that his predecessor Pope Benedict is "very sick" and asked for prayers for the 95-year-old former pontiff.

"I want to ask you all for a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict who sustains the Church in his silence. He is very sick," Francis said during his general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday.

"We ask the Lord to console and sustain him in this witness of love for the Church to the very end."

In 2013, Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world by making the almost unprecedented decision to resign from his position, citing "advanced age."

Benedict's announcement marked the first time a pope had stepped down in nearly 600 years. The last pope to resign before his death was Gregory XII, who in 1415 quit to end a civil war within the Catholic Church in which more than one man claimed to be pope.

In 2020, the Vatican said Benedict had suffered from a "painful but not serious condition," following reports in German media that he was ill.

Two years earlier, in a rare public letter published in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Benedict wrote that "in the slow waning of my physical forces, inwardly I am on a pilgrimage toward Home."

Benedict's legacy has been clouded by recent scrutiny of his time as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, between 1977 and 1982, after a Church-commissioned report into abuse by Catholic clergy there was published in January.

The report found that he had been informed of four cases of sexual abuse involving minors -- including two during his time in Munich -- but failed to act, and that he had attended a meeting about an abusive priest.

Benedict later pushed back against those allegations, admitting he had attended the meeting but denying he intentionally concealed his presence.

ROME —

Retired Pope Benedict XVI asked forgiveness Tuesday for any “grievous faults" in his handling of clergy sex abuse cases, but denied any personal or specific wrongdoing after an independent report criticized his actions in four cases while he was archbishop of Munich, Germany.

Benedict's lack of a personal apology or admission of guilt immediately riled abuse survivors, who said his response reflected the Catholic hierarchy's “permanent” refusal to accept responsibility for the rape and sodomy of children by priests.

Benedict, 94, was responding to a Jan. 20 report from a German law firm that had been commissioned by the German Catholic Church to look into how cases of sexual abuse were handled in the Munich archdiocese between 1945 and 2019. Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the archdiocese from 1977 to 1982.

The report faulted Benedict’s handling of four cases during his time as archbishop, accusing him of misconduct for having failed to restrict the ministry of the four priests even after they had been convicted criminally. The report also faulted his predecessors and successors, estimating there had been at least 497 abuse victims over the decades and at least 235 suspected perpetrators.

The Vatican on Tuesday released a letter that Benedict wrote to respond to the allegations, alongside a more technical reply from his lawyers who had provided an initial 82-page response to the law firm about his nearly five-year tenure in Munich.

The conclusion of Benedict’s lawyers was resolute: “As an archbishop, Cardinal Ratzinger was not involved in any cover-up of acts of abuse,” they wrote. They criticized the report's authors for misinterpreting their submission, and asserted that the authors provided no evidence that Benedict was aware of the criminal history of any of the four priests in question.

Benedict’s response was more nuanced and spiritual, though he went on at length to thank his legal team before even addressing the allegations or the victims of abuse.

“I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church,” the retired pope said in his letter. “All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my mandate.”

Benedict issued what he called a “confession,” though he didn't confess to any specific sin or fault. He recalled that daily Mass begins with believers confessing their sins and asking forgiveness for their faults and even their “grievous faults.” Benedict noted that in his meetings with abuse victims while he was pope, “I have seen at first hand the effects of a most grievous fault.

“And I have come to understand that we ourselves are drawn into this grievous fault whenever we neglect it or fail to confront it with the necessary decisiveness and responsibility, as too often happened and continues to happen,” he wrote. “As in those meetings, once again I can only express to all the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness.”

His response drew swift criticism from Eckiger Tisch, a group representing German clergy abuse survivors, who said it fit into the church's "permanent relativizing on matters of abuse -- wrongdoing and mistakes took place, but no one takes concrete responsibility,” the group said in a statement.

“Joseph Ratzinger can’t bring himself simply to state that he is sorry not to have done more to protect the children entrusted to his church,” the group said. “That would be an honest sentence."

The response will likely complicate efforts by German bishops re-establish credibility with the faithful, whose demands for accountability have only increased as the church has come to terms with decades of abuse and cover-up.

The head of the German bishops conference, Limburg Bishop Georg Baetzing, had previously said that Benedict needed to respond to the report by distancing himself from his lawyers and advisers. “He must talk, and he must override his advisers and essentially say the simple sentence: ’I incurred guilt, I made mistakes and I apologize to those affected,” Baetzing said. ”It won’t work any other way.”

In a tweet Tuesday, Baetzing noted that Benedict had said he would respond and has now honored that pledge.

”I am grateful to him for that and he deserves respect for it,” Baetzing wrote. The tweet didn't address the substance of Benedict’s response.

The law firm report identified four cases in which Ratzinger was accused of misconduct in failing to act against abusers.

Two cases involved priests who offended while Ratzinger was archbishop and were punished by the German legal system but were kept in pastoral work without any limits on their ministry. A third case involved a cleric who was convicted by a court outside Germany but was put into service in Munich. The fourth case involved a convicted pedophile priest who was allowed to transfer to Munich in 1980, and was later put into ministry. In 1986, that priest received a suspended sentence for molesting a boy.

Benedict’s team had earlier clarified an initial “error” in their submission to the law firm that had insisted Ratzinger was not present at the 1980 meeting in which the priest’s transfer to Munich was discussed. Ratzinger was there, but his return to ministry was not discussed, they said.

Benedict said he was deeply hurt that the “oversight” about his presence at the 1980 meeting had been used to “cast doubt on my truthfulness, and even to label me a liar.” But he said he had been heartened by the letters and gestures of support he had received, including from his successor.

“I am particularly grateful for the confidence, support and prayer that Pope Francis personally expressed to me,” he said.

The Vatican had already strongly defended Benedict’s record in the aftermath of the law firm report, recalling that Benedict was the first pope to meet with victims of abuse, that he had issued strong norms to punish priests who raped children and had directed the church to pursue a path of humility in seeking forgiveness for the crimes of its clerics.

The Vatican’s defense, however, focused primarily on Benedict’s tenure as head of the Holy See’s doctrine office and his eight-year papacy.

Benedict reflected on his legacy at the end of his letter, noting that he is at the end of his life and will soon be judged by God.

“Quite soon, I shall find myself before the final judge of my life,” he wrote. “Even though, as I look back on my long life, I can have great reason for fear and trembling, I am nonetheless of good cheer. For I trust firmly that the Lord is not only the just judge, but also the friend and brother who himself has already suffered for my shortcomings."

___

Geir Moulson contributed from Berlin.

VATICAN CITY — Retired Pope Benedict XVI admitted Monday he attended a meeting in 1980 regarding a case of sexual abuse of a child.

The meeting happened when Pope Benedict was the archbishop of Munich, Germany.

In a statement published in the German Catholic newspaper, Die Tagespost, the former pope’s personal secretary Archbishop Georg Gänswein clarified that contrary to what was stated during a hearing, Benedict did attend the Ordinariate meeting.

This comes after a report faulted Benedict for not taking action against four abusive priests in Germany.

The newspaper reports that the former pope is “very sorry for his mistake.”

The priest involved in the investigation was allowed to resume pastoral work.

This is a decision that could have only been made with the consultation of the archbishop.

Gänswein said Benedict plans to explain how the error happened after he goes through the nearly 2,000-page report.

Benedict lives in the Vatican today.

He resigned from the papacy in 2013.

BOSTON —

Phil Saviano, a clergy sex abuse survivor and whistleblower who played a pivotal role in exposing decades of predatory assaults by Roman Catholic priests in the United States, has died. He was 69.

Saviano's story figured prominently in the 2015 Oscar-winning film “Spotlight” about The Boston Globe's investigation that revealed how scores of priests molested children and got away with it because church leaders covered it up. He died on Sunday after a battle with gallbladder cancer, said his brother and caregiver, Jim Saviano.

Related video above: Report last month finds 330,000 children were victims of sex abuse within France's Catholic Church since 1950

In late October, Phil Saviano announced on his Facebook page that he was starting hospice care at his brother’s home in Douglas, Massachusetts, where he died.

“Things have been dicey the last few weeks,” he wrote, asking followers to “give a listen to Judy Collins singing ‘Bird On A Wire’ and think of me.”

Saviano played a central role in illuminating the scandal, which led to the resignation of Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law and church settlements with hundreds of victims. The Globe's 2002 series earned it the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003, and “Spotlight” won Academy Awards for best picture and best original screenplay. Actor Neal Huff played Saviano in the film.

“My gift to the world was not being afraid to speak out,” Saviano said in mid-November in a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Born June 23, 1952, Saviano recalled going to confession as a young boy at St. Denis Church in tiny East Douglas, Massachusetts, in the 1960s and whispering his transgressions through a screen to the Rev. David Holley. The priest, he said, violated that sacred trust and forced the 11-year-old to perform sex acts. Holley died in a New Mexico prison in 2008 while serving a 275-year sentence for molesting eight boys.

“When we were kids, the priests never did anything wrong. You didn’t question them, same as the police,” brother Jim Saviano told the AP. “There were many barriers put in his way intentionally and otherwise by institutions and generational thinking. That didn't stop him. That’s a certain kind of bravery that was unique."

A self-described “recovering Catholic,” Saviano went on to establish the New England chapter of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, an organization working to bring specific allegations of clergy sexual abuse to light.

His faith in the church shattered, Saviano instead leaned on politicians and prosecutors to bring offenders to justice.

“We’re putting our faith in legislators and prosecutors to solve this problem,” he told reporters in 2002.

“Phil was an essential source during the Spotlight Team’s reporting on the cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, providing other critical sources, research materials and the names of several accused priests,” said Mike Rezendes, a member of the Globe team that brought the scandal to light and a current AP investigative reporter.

“He also shared his own heartbreaking story of abuse, imbuing us with the iron determination we needed to break this horrific story,” Rezendes said. “During our reporting, and over the last 20 years, I got to know Phil well and have never met anyone as brave, as compassionate or as savvy.”

Saviano earned degrees in zoology and communications from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Boston University and began working in hospital public relations. Later, he shifted to entertainment industry publicity and concert promotion, working closely with Collins, a lifelong friend and confidante, as well as Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Torme and other artists.

In 1991, he became seriously ill with AIDS and went public with his childhood abuse the following year, becoming one of the first survivors to come forward.

“Father Holley forced me and two of my friends to have repeated sexual contact with him,” Saviano said in an interview with the Globe — the first of many that would lead not only to criminal charges against the disgraced cleric but widespread prosecutions of others as the enormity of the scandal became evident.

By the early 2000s, Saviano was spending 10 hours a day on the phone with victims and journalists. He was an outspoken critic of the Vatican's reluctance to deal decisively with the fallout from the scandal. In 2008, when Pope Benedict XVI hinted to U.S. bishops during a visit that they'd mishandled the church’s response, Saviano questioned the pontiff's decision to follow his remarks with Masses in New York and Washington.

“If he was really serious about the issue, that Mass would not be held in New York. It would be held here in Boston," he said.

In 2009, suffering kidney failure and unable to locate a match among family or friends, he found a donor after SNAP spread the word in a nationwide email to 8,000 clergy sex abuse survivors.

The abuse that came to light as a result of Saviano's work prompted Cardinal Law, Boston's highest-ranking churchman, to step down. The Globe's reporting showed Law was aware of child molesters in the priesthood but covered up their crimes and failed to stop them, instead transferring them from parish to parish without alerting parents or police.

When the archbishop died in Rome in 2017, Saviano asked bluntly: “How is he going to explain this when he comes face to face with his maker?”

In 2019, at the Vatican for an abuse prevention summit called convened by Pope Francis, Saviano said he told summit organizers to release the names of abusive priests around the world along with their case files.

“Do it to launch a new era of transparency. Do it to break the code of silence. Do it out of respect for the victims of these men, and do it to help prevent these creeps from abusing any more children," he said.

Although there was a hard edge to much of his life, Saviano enjoyed traveling extensively and developed a soft spot for Indigenous art. In 1999, he launched an e-commerce website, Viva Oaxaca Folk Art, showcasing handmade decorative pieces he purchased on trips to southern Mexico and resold to collectors across the U.S.

He is survived by three brothers, Jim Saviano of Douglas; John Saviano of Douglas; and Victor Saviano of Boston; two nieces; and two nephews. A funeral Mass was scheduled for Friday at St. Denis Church in East Douglas.

CINCINNATI — An upscale Cincinnati neighborhood known for its inclusiveness is fighting against a Catholic religious order's proposal to establish a monastery in North Avondale.

The Legionaries of Christ has requested a conditional use permit to establish a residence for seven to 10 “Catholic missionary priests” at 3980 Rose Hill Avenue.

The city’s zoning staff recommended approval of the permit in advance of a July 7 hearing. But that hearing was delayed until later this month after residents complained they weren't properly notified.

Meantime, more than three dozen neighbors have blanketed the city with letters of opposition, citing concerns about parking constraints, the zoning process, housing values and clergy sexual abuse.

“I implore you to simply Google this particular order of priests,” wrote Jason Rich. “As a lifelong Catholic and father of a 6-year-old, there is simply no way this order should be allowed in a residential community of single-family homes.”

The Legionaries of Christ declined to offer public comment in advance of the zoning hearing but said via email it is “available to answer any private concerns from residents of the neighborhood.”

Founded in Mexico and now operating in more than 30 countries, the Legionaries of Christ is well known for the rise and fall of its founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel. The charismatic leader established schools and seminaries around the world through a well-financed lay association known as the Regnum Christi. But in 1997, a group of his former students accused Maciel of abusing them. That led to a Vatican investigation preceding his 2008 death and a 2019 report in which the Legionaries revealed Maciel had “at least 60 victims” since the 1940s.

Although the report didn’t reveal any names, it disclosed that 33 other Legionary priests “committed abuses,” including 18 who were still with the congregation in 2019. In March, the Legionaries released another report revising its numbers to 27 priests, 16 of whom remain with the congregation.

The group’s “Cincinnati community” web page identifies three lay missionaries, one religious brother and four priests, including the chaplains of Royalmont Academy in Mason and Camp River Ridge near Oldenburg, Indiana.

None of their names appear in records collected by the WCPO 9 I-Team's 2019 “Culture of Silence” investigation into clergy sexual abuse in Greater Cincinnati since the 1940s.

Their current landlord vouched for the group’s ability to be good neighbors in a May 17 letter supporting the conditional use permit.

“I have rented a single-family home in a residential neighborhood to the Legionaries for the past seven years,” wrote Michael Gates, president of Bearcat Properties of Mason. “They have maintained the home and property in good condition, always paid their rent on time, are agreeable with and respectful to the neighbors and have never caused a disturbance in the neighborhood.”

Cincinnati Archbishop Dennis Schnurr also wrote a May 18 support letter, citing the section of Cincinnati’s municipal code that allows for the establishment of convents.

“The Catholic Church has a long-standing tradition of religious men or women living together as a community,” Schnurr wrote. “I am writing to confirm that the Legionaries of Christ are a recognized congregation of the Catholic Church who have been residing in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati since 2012.”

The support letters were followed by a June 24 staff report siding with Opdyke Inc., a nonprofit real estate company affiliated with the Legionaries. Opdyke has a contract to purchase the six-bedroom home that was listed at $789,000.

“The proposed residential unit is appropriately located, designed and configured for a Convent and Monastery use,” wrote Douglas Owen, zoning plan examiner for the city. “The house will be utilized only for the living quarters of the members of the religious order and will function in the same manner as a single-family dwelling. No events or services will take place on site.”

Owen’s report said “neighbors have contacted Zoning Staff with concerns that the property would be used as a Transitional Housing facility for homeless people, people recovering from drug or alcohol addiction and/or people under criminal justice supervision. The applicants have stated that the property will only be used as a personal residence for 7-10 members of the religious order.”

Before the July 7 hearing was postponed, Cincinnati Zoning Administrator Emily Ahouse said the city was reviewing its recommendation to include new information provided by residents. So, it's possible the recommendation will change before the matter comes to a hearing later this month.

"This hearing is going to be put back on the docket as quickly as we can," said Hearing Examiner David Sturkey. "No more than three weeks."

The staff recommendation is one element considered at a zoning hearing, along with testimony from the applicant and nearby property owners, according to the city’s website. Those who don’t like a hearing examiner’s decision can appeal first to the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals, then to Hamilton County Common Pleas Court.

The report and letters of support riled some Rose Hill neighbors because they were dated before many residents were notified by mail about the proposed zone change.

“Our neighbors are trying to convey what is best for our neighborhood, but it appears it has fallen on deaf ears, as the zoning staff has already decided,” wrote Carolyn Gillman, who chairs the block watch committee of the North Avondale Neighborhood Association. “Why are you asking for a notice of public hearing when it is obvious you are not listening? This whole entire process is terribly disappointing.”

Other neighbors chimed in with multiple concerns:

• “Many of our neighbors are LGBTQ; this group won’t have any respect for our way of life.”
• “The home does not accommodate parking for 7-10 individuals; street parking regularly is unacceptable.”
• “Having a group of seven to 10 non-related individuals that do not own the home themselves, nor have a steady source of income, calls into question how and if they will maintain the home.”
• “If this variance passes, it opens the door to any and all groups wishing to also apply for a variance, thus possibly eroding the integrity of the neighborhood.”

Realtor Jack Wolking lives in North Avondale and represents the seller at 3980 Rose Hill. He said the Legionaries have assuaged some neighborhood concerns with a series of “porch meetings,” where residents asked questions and got to know their neighbors.

“I think one of the reasons people move to North Avondale is because it’s a very open, welcoming, inclusive neighborhood. There’s a lot of civic pride here,” said Wolking, sales vice president with Comey & Shepherd Realtors. “My main concern is that everyone’s voice gets heard. And predicated on that, a decision can be made that everyone can live with.”