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	Pope's Brother Admits Slapping Choirboys By Nick Squires Telegraph March 9, 2010 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7406512/Popes-brother-admits-slapping-choirboys.html Georg Ratzinger, 86, who ran the choir from 1964 to 1994, said he now regretted using corporal punishment against his charges and asked their forgiveness. "At the beginning I administered clips round the ear, but I always had a bad conscience about it. I was happy when in 1980 corporal punishment was banned by law," he said. People had "become more sensitive" about physically reprimanding children, a change that he welcomed. "At the same time, I ask the victims for forgiveness," Ratzinger, who is four years older than his brother, told a Bavarian daily newspaper, Passauer Neue Presse. The choir that he ran, the Domspatzen in Regensburg, Bavaria, has become the latest Catholic institution in Germany to be swept up in allegations of boys as young as eight being abused by priests. Ratzinger said he had no knowledge of the sex abuse which allegedly took place in the 1950s and 1960s. "The problem of sexual abuse that has now come to light was never discussed," he said. A former pupil at the boarding school which was attached to the choir has claimed that there was an "ingenious system of sadistic punishments connected to sexual pleasure." Franz Wittenbrink, now a successful director and composer, said one headmaster in the 50s would take two or three boys to his flat, give them red wine and engage them in a sexual act. "Everyone knew about it," Wittenbrink told Spiegel magazine. "I find it inexplicable that Georg Ratzinger, who had been cathedral bandmaster since 1964, apparently knew nothing about it." In addition to the growing scandal in Germany, Catholic priests have recently been accused of abusing children in their care in the Netherlands and Austria.
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