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Pope Francis rejected the offer of resignation from the Archbishop of Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx on Thursday, who had told the pope he would step down amid the sexual abuse crisis.
Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, Germany, has submitted his resignation to Pope Francis, saying that bishops must begin to accept responsibility for the institutional failures of the church in handling the clerical sexual abuse crisis. (CNS photo/Norbert Neetz, KNA)
In a decision that has sent shock waves through the German Catholic Church, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, 67, the archbishop of Munich and Freising, revealed that on May 21 he met Pope Francis in the Vatican and handed him his letter of resignation, with a strong plea that the pontiff accept it. He said Francis asked him to continue serving as bishop of the archdiocese until he has made a decision on his request.
(ILLUSTRATIVE) Demonstrators in Berlin brandish Turkish and Palestinian flags as they burn an Israeli flag during a 2017 protest. Photo: Jüdisches Forum für Demokratie und gegen Antisemitismus.
The escalating conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is beginning to impact Jewish communities in Europe, where previous wars in Gaza and Lebanon during the last 20 years have triggered waves of antisemitic attacks.
In Germany, at least three antisemitic incidents have been reported to police since Monday. In the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, Israeli flags were burned by unidentified individuals outside synagogues in the cities of Bonn and Munster, while a memorial stone to a synagogue in Dusseldorf destroyed during the Nazi era was vandalized.