BERLIN (AP) — A leading German cardinal and confidante of Pope Francis has offered to resign over the church’s mishandling of clergy sexual abuse scandals and declared that the church had arrived at “a dead end.” Cardinal Reinhard Marx published his resignation letter to the pope online Friday. He wrote that he wants to take a share of responsibility for the “catastrophe of sexual abuse by office-holders of the church in the past decades.” But he also issued a challenge of sorts for his fellow bishops to use the opportunity of the abuse scandal to save the church and reform it. There was no immediate comment from the Vatican, where Marx sits on powerful financial and political bodies.
