Is the Catholic Church Doing Enough, CNN, March 10, 2010

Is the Catholic Church Doing Enough?

CNN
March 10, 2010

http://connecttheworld.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/10/is-the-catholic-church-doing-enough/

The Catholic Church in Germany has been hit by new allegations of child sexual abuse at Catholic institutions.

In an interview with CNN, Norbert Denef said that the child abuse started when he was 10 years old and that it continued until he was 18.

Is the Catholic Church doing enough?

More than 100 cases of child abuse in Catholic institutions in Germany have come to light over the past two months, but Denef is one of the few victims speaking out publicly.

Under fire from victims and politicians, the church has said it will revise the guidelines for dealing with cases of sexual abuse.

"I apologize in the name of the church in Germany to all those who became victims of such crimes," Robert Zollitsch, the archbishop of Freiburg and highest-ranking Catholic in Germany, said recently.

Some have accused the Vatican of trying to cover up the scandal in the homeland of the pope.

On Tuesday the pope's spokesperson issued a rebuttal.

"The main ecclesiastical institutions concerned - the German Jesuit Province, the German Episcopal Conference, the Austrian Episcopal Conference and the Netherlands Episcopal Conference - have faced the emergence of the problem with timely and decisive action," the pope's spokesman, Frederico Lombardi, said in a statement.

The Catholic church has also been rocked by recent allegations of sexual abuse in Austria and Ireland.

We want to know what you think.

Do you think the Catholic Church in Germany is doing enough to investigate the claims? Should there be more transparency in the investigations? Is the Vatican not talking a hard enough stance?