Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has admitted that he made a false statement during an investigation into sexual abuse in the German Catholic Church, in a statement released via his private secretary Georg Gänswein and published in the Vatican News website. Contrary to what he had initially said, Benedict had taken part in a meeting in 1980 as archbishop of Munich and Freising, at which a priest was discussed who had repeatedly attracted attention for sexual abuse of children. That priest was later reinstated as a pastor in Bavaria. The mistake was “not made with bad intentions” but was the “result …