“Each individual case of sexual abuse is appalling and irreparable,” Pope Benedict wrote. “The victims of sexual abuse have my deepest sympathy, and I feel great sorrow for each individual case.”

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI has written a “mea culpa” in which he asks forgiveness for “the abuses and the errors” that occurred when he held different positions of great responsibility in the church.

This week on “Inside the Vatican,” host Colleen Dulle and veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell discuss Gerry’s interview with Hans Zollner, S.J., a leading abuse prevention expert based at the Vatican.

Father Zollner is the president of the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Center for Child Protection. He has been one of the few people in Rome willing to speak on the record about the Munich report.

The report landed on French Catholics like a bomb. French bishops had never considered sexual abuse a serious problem. “We have been in denial for 20 years,” Father Goujon said. “The bishops said that [that kind of abuse] could never happen here.”

A report released last week alleges that former Pope Benedict XVI allowed four abusive priests in Munich to remain in ministry. This episode is an opportunity to understand the church’s fitful evolution on dealing with abuse.