Regensburg Archives

Ex-Vatican doctrine chief says Church did what it could on German abuse scandal
- Global Church
- July 20, 2017
Cardinal Gerhard Müller, until recently the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, spoke about a recent report that found 547 former members of the Regensburg Domspatzen boys choir were abused, including 67 cases of sexual violence. As former diocesan archbishop, he began the investigations into the allegations, which first surfaced in 2010.
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Hundreds of boys abused in choir once run by Georg Ratzinger
- Associated Press, Global Church
- July 18, 2017
Allegations involving the Domspatzen choir in Regensburg, which was run for 30 years by Benedict’s elder brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, were among a spate of revelations of abuse by Catholic clergy in Germany that emerged in 2010. A new report investigating the abuse counted 500 cases of physical violence and 67 of sexual violence, committed by a total of 49 perpetrators.
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Religious freedom and Islamic terrorism
- Church in the US, Commentary
- May 17, 2017
Blasphemy laws are used to persecute critics of Islam in many Muslim countries, whether moderate Muslims, Christians or Jews, and to attack so-called “non-believers,” thus forming an impenetrable barrier to any form of acceptance of other religious beliefs and contributing to the growth of Islamic extremism. Ending these laws could set the stage for free expression of religious opinions in the Muslim world and help modernize Islamic societies.
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On day one in Egypt, Francis delivers his Regensburg speech

Though Pope Francis avoided the incendiary quotation linking the Prophet Mohammed with violence that stirred protest when used by Pope Benedict XVI at Regensburg, Germany, in 2006, he delivered a similar sort of wake-up call for religious leaders in the Islamic world, insisting that violence is a “negation of every authentic religious expression.”

On anniversary, can we finally catch Benedict’s point at Regensburg?

Today marks the tenth anniversary of perhaps the most controversial papal speech of the last half-century, delivered by Benedict XVI in Regensburg, and a decade later the central point seems still to be lost in the noise — to wit, the speech wasn’t about Islam but the West.