A broad debate has erupted in Germany after former Pope Benedict XVI corrected a central statement he made on the Munich abuse report presented last week.

Retired Pope Benedict XVI said he was present at a 1980 meeting to discuss the transfer of a priest accused of misconduct, amending an earlier statement in which he said that he was not in attendance.

In a previously scheduled speech to the Vatican office that handles sex abuse cases, Pope Francis did not refer to the findings of a long-awaited report into how the Munich archdiocese handled abuse cases.

A law firm’s report on how abuse cases were handled in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising faualted retired Pope Benedict XVI, with lawyers accusing him of “misconduct” in four cases during his tenure as Munich archbishop.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has provided extensive answers to lawyers’ questions concerning sexual abuse cases in the Munich archdiocese, a major German newspaper reported Friday.

“It seemed to me, right from the beginning, that Francis’ style of pontificate was like a punch in the stomach from the Holy Spirit to wake us up,” Cardinal Angelo Scola says in this exclusive interview.