Press TV
March 8, 2010
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=120383§ionid=3510212
While German authorities are seeking to break the Catholic Church's "wall of silence" on child molestation, Catholic reformers turn to Pope Benedict XVI for answers.
Sexual abuse of child pupils at several German Catholic schools, including a monastic boarding school in Bavaria, have sparked a nationwide scandal with more than 150 ex-students coming forward with allegations of suffering abuse during the 1970s and 80s.
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| An undated picture shows Pope Benedict XVI. |
In a German radio interview On Monday, Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger criticized a 2001 Vatican directive requiring even the most serious abuse cases to be first investigated internally, saying it had erected a "wall of silence," around the issue.
Recent media revelation about the sexual and physical abuse of former choirboys of the famous Regensburger Domspatzen choir, which was once headed by the Pope's brother Georg Ratzinger, has turned the spotlight to Rome.
The sexual abuse dates back to the 1960s. Ratzinger, who led the choir from mid-60s to mid-90s, has denied any knowledge of the abuse, and has promised to testify, should a case be built around the abuses.
The choir's director and composer has unveiled terrible details of how as a choirboy, he saw the boarding school's director at the time "come into the dormitory at night and pick out two, three of us boys to take back to his apartment."
A spokesman for the "We are the Church" movement, Christian Weisner, urged the Pope to publicly state what he knew about the abuse by clerics in the Bavarian city of Regensburg during his 1977-1982 term as bishop there.
"From 1977 to 1981 Joseph Ratzinger was the bishop of Munich and Freising, so he must answer the question about what he knew then and what he did about it," Weisner told DAPD news agency.
He said that the senior officials in the church leadership could not have been unaware of the abuse, calling on authorities to take action.
The Pandora's box opened in January, when the student's complaints of abuse at a prestigious Berlin college in the 70s-80s were made public for the first time.
Decades of silence have rendered most of the cases untouchable due to a lapsed statute of limitations. A majority of individuals involved in the scandal can no longer be prosecuted.
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