Pope Benedict explains that he did not want the book published while he was still living because of the furious reaction his writings inspired: “For my part, in life, I no longer want to publish anything. The fury of the circles against me in Germany is so strong that the appearance of my every word immediately causes a murderous shouting from them. I want to spare myself and Christendom this.”
It’s easy to see why this book would inspire “murderous shouting” from some corners of the Roman Catholic Church. Benedict writes that the Church is close to “collapse” and paints a picture of seminaries in the United States as centers of promiscuous homosexuality and perversion. “In various seminaries,” the pope explained, “homosexual ‘clubs’ were formed which acted more or less openly and which clearly transformed the atmosphere in the seminaries. In a seminary in southern Germany, candidates for the priesthood and candidates for the lay office of pastoral referent lived together.”
The corruption was more or less out in the open. “During common meals,” Benedict noted, “the seminarians were together with married pastoral representatives, partly accompanied by their wives and children and in some cases by their girlfriends. The climate in the seminary could not help priestly formation.” He said that a “bishop who had previously been rector had allowed seminarians to be shown pornographic films, presumably with the intention of thereby enabling them to resist against behavior contrary to the faith.”
