letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland addressing cases of sexual abuse by priests of minors, expressing sorrow and promising changes in the way in which accusations of abuse were addressed. Victims' groups claimed the letter failed to clarify if secular law enforcement had priority over canon law confidentiality regarding internal investigation of abuse allegations. The Pope then promised to introduce measures that would "safeguard young people in the future" and "bring to justice" priests who were responsible for abuse and the next month the Vatican issued guidelines on how existing church law should be implemented. The guidelines asserted that "Civil law concerning reporting of crimes ... should always be followed." As Archbishop of Munich and Freising Despite being more proactive than his predecessor in addressing sexual abuse, Benedict was nonetheless cited as failing to do so on more than one occasion. In January 2022, a report written by German law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl and commissioned by the Catholic Church concluded that Cardinal Ratzinger failed to adequately take action against clerics in four cases of alleged abuse while he was Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982. The pope emeritus denied the accusations. Benedict corrected his former statement that he had not been at a meeting of the ordinariate of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising in January 1980, saying he mistakenly told German investigators he was not there. However, the error was "not done out of bad faith", but "the result of an error in the editorial processing" of his statement. According to Reuters, lawyer Martin Pusch said that "in a total of four cases, we have come to the conclusion that the then Archbishop Cardinal Ratzinger can be accused of misconduct in cases of sexual abuse." In February 2022, Benedict admitted that errors were made in the treating of sexual abuse cases when he was Archbishop of Munich. According to the letter released by the Vatican, he asked forgiveness for any "grievous fault" but denied personal wrongdoing. Benedict stated: "I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church. All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my mandate." Legion of Christ founder Marcial Maciel One of the cases Ratzinger pursued involved Marcial Maciel, a Mexican priest and founder of the Legionaries of Christ who had been accused repeatedly of sexual abuse.