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	Abuse Cases Surface at the Vatican and in Pope's Brother's Choir Malta Independent March 7, 2010 http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=102672 VATICAN CITY -- A senior aide to the Pope and a Vatican chorister have been removed from their posts over allegations of involvement in a homosexual prostitution ring. The Vatican confirmed it had suspended Angelo Balducci, an usher known as a Gentleman to His Holiness, whose duties included greeting important visitors. Police had been tapping his phone in connection with a corruption inquiry, when they heard about the sex ring. The chorister, a Nigerian named Ghinedu Thomas Ehiem, is said to have found men for Mr Balducci. Mr Ehiem sang for 19 years in the Giulia Choir, which performs at St Peter's Basilica when the Pope is not present. In addition to being a Gentleman to His Holiness, Mr Balducci is an engineer who is a board member of Italy's public works department. The case has made front-page news in the Italian media. Excerpts of wiretaps published in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Thursday, showed Mr Ehiem had been in regular contact with Mr Balducci before the latter was arrested on corruption charges last month. The transcripts suggest that Mr Ehiem procured at least 10 contacts for Mr Balducci, including a male model and a rugby player. A police document prepared for magistrates said Mr Ehiem and another man were part of "an organised network... to abet male prostitution". Mr Balducci's lawyer, Franco Coppi, told the Reuters news agency that he had no comment on the newest accusations against his client. "We have much more serious things to be concerned with right now," he said, referring to the corruption charges. Mr Ehiem told the Italian publication Panorama that he would find men on the Pianeta Escort (Planet Escort) website and set up encounters between them and Mr Balducci at his apartment in Rome. "He asked and I executed. He would give me 50 or 100 euros, never more than 1,000 or 1,500 euros a year," Mr Ehiem added. A spokesman for the Vatican said that Pope Benedict XVI was aware of the matter. Meanwhile, an ever-widening sexual abuse scandal involving Germany's Catholic Church spilled into the heart of Pope Benedict XVI's homeland on Friday, when a former member of the prominent Regensburg boys choir claimed he was a victim of sexual abuse. A former singer has come forward with allegations that church employees had sexually abused him in the early 1960s, said Clemens Neck, a spokesman for the Regensburg Diocese, which oversees the school connected to the renowned Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir. Neck gave no details on the extent of the abuse, but said it happened before the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, the Pope's brother, took over the choir in 1964. Ratzinger led the choir, comprised of around 500 boys and young men, until his retirement in 1994. Continues on page 8 Ratzinger told public radio Bayerischer Rundfunk on Friday that he did not know of any abuse cases at the choir and another spokesman for the diocese, Jakob Schoetz, said the known cases of abuse did not happen during Ratzinger's tenure. "The cases that are known to us at this time did not take place during his tenure," Schoetz wrote. The allegations by the former Domspatzen singer are part of a spiralling scandal that has grown from the claims of seven former pupils at a Catholic-run Berlin high school to more than 170 ex-students from several of the church's most prominent educational facilities in Germany, including the high school connected to the Domspatzen and the Ettal Monastery boarding school – both in the pope's home region of Bavaria. From 1969 to 1977 the pope, then Joseph Ratzinger, taught theology at the University of Regensburg . On Friday, the Regensburg Diocese announced that it was hiring a lawyer to help it carry out a "systematic" clarification of the abuse allegations that currently range from 1958 to 1973. "We call on all victims to contact our representative for sexual abuse cases," the dioceses said. "We would like to encourage people to come, to give a name to their suffering and, through this, to ease and eliminate the pain." The diocese said it was seeking information regarding the report of a priest who taught religion at the high school for the Domspaten from 1953 to 1958 and was convicted of sexually abusing two students during that time. He served a two-year prison sentence for the abuse, the diocese said. It also has leads on at least two other instances of sexual and physical abuse at schools in Etterzhausen and Weiden – both in the 1960s – as well as three other cases at music schools that train boys who go on to sing in with the Domspatzen. On Thursday, the Ettal Monastery boarding school said the Vatican had confirmed it would send an inspector to look into accusations of sexual abuse made by 20 alumni of the school. Last week, Munich prosecutors opened an investigation into allegations of abuse against one member of the Benedictine-run school. The second priest who was accused of sexual abuse has since died.
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