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Benedict leaves German homeland with complicated legacy

Pope Benedict XVI waves to the crowd at the end of a papal Mass at the Islinger field in Regensburg, southern Germany, on September 12, 2006. [AP Photo]

Pope Benedict XVI leaves his homeland with a complicated legacy: pride in a German pontiff but a church deeply divided over the need for reforms in the wake of a sexual abuse scandal in which his own actions of decades ago were faulted.

Benedict has long drawn mixed reviews in Germany, a country where Christians are roughly evenly split between Catholics and Protestants and where many struggled with his conservative stance.

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