Abuse and Counterabuse, The Economist, March 11, 2010

Abuse and Counterabuse

The Economist
March 11, 2010

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15663981

Joseph and Georg, bother in Christ

Child-abuse scandals in the Catholic church come a bit nearer the pope

THE Domspatzen have been singing in Regensburg, Bavaria, for a thousand years. But in the 1960s some choirboys there were victims of a “refined system of sadistic punishments connected with sexual lust”, according to Franz Wittenbrink, a composer who attended the choir’s boarding school until 1967. Their traumas are among scores of cases coming to light at Catholic institutions across Germany and elsewhere in Europe, mostly decades after the crimes were committed. The church is struggling to dispel the impression that it is the most flagrant abuser of its own principles. And Germany’s political leaders seem torn between their concern for children’s welfare and their ties to the church.

Christianity matters in Germany. Around two-thirds of west Germans identify themselves as Catholics or Protestants. Christians who pay income tax hand over an extra “church tax” that accounts for two-thirds of church revenue. Germans are not devout: 4% of Protestants and 14% of Catholics in the west are weekly churchgoers. But, says Detlef Pollack of the Wilhelms University in Munster, many count on the church to succour the sick, to offer counsel in times of need or to educate their children. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Chancellor Angela Merkel, daughter of a Protestant pastor, has its roots in the pre-war Centre Party, which was closely linked to the Catholic church.

Protestant prestige was briefly dented in February when the church’s leader, Margot Kassmann, was caught drunk-driving (she promptly resigned). The Catholic church may have to serve a harder penance. Since January more than 150 people have come forward with various tales of abuse. The latest allegation is of abuse in the 1970s at a school near Mainz. At an elite Benedictine school in Ettal, in Bavaria, in the 1960s “absolute terror reigned”, says one victim. At a children’s home in Berlin, the perpetrator was a nun, claims a 60-year-old woman. Other scandals have surfaced in Austria and the Netherlands.

The Regensburg allegations come near Pope Benedict XVI. His brother, Georg Ratzinger, led the “cathedral sparrows” for 30 years from 1964. He has confessed to slapping children but said he knew nothing of sexual abuse. Mr Wittenbrink finds this claim “inexplicable”.

Death and defection are slowly eroding the membership of both main churches. The drop in revenue is happening more speedily because those who leave tend to have relatively high incomes. Within 20 years the income of the Protestant church may shrink to two-thirds of its present level, says Mr Pollack. Blows to the churches’ moral authority will hasten the process.

Germany’s Catholic church is striving to avoid the secrecy and complacency that shaped the response to similar horrors in Ireland and America. It has appointed a representative for sexual abuse, Stephan Ackermann. He promises “no minimisation or cover-up”. The director of the Ettal school and the abbot of the monastery that runs it have been pushed out. There is talk of strengthening the church’s 2002 guidelines for dealing with sexual abuse.

The law provides no clear remedy, since the statute of limitations bars prosecution for abuses that occurred decades ago. In the vacuum a debate has flared about whether the church is doing enough, which has split the government. The justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, who comes from the Free Democratic Party (FDP), a partner in Mrs Merkel’s coalition, accuses the Catholic church of erecting a “wall of silence”. Church policy, she claims, is to investigate abuse allegations internally. She wants the church to compensate victims and participate in a “round table” with their representatives. In the stridency of her demands, Catholics smell a whiff of anti-clericalism.

The church refuses to be singled out. Its misdeeds, it says, have nothing to do with religion or celibacy; in a permissive society, secular educators also commit them. The latest target of abuse allegations is a non-religious boarding school in Hesse. The church will join a round table, but not as the only guilty party. In this, it has allies. Mrs Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger’s partners think she took her criticisms too far. “For her it’s about attacking the Catholic church,” complained Norbert Geis of the Christian Social Union, the CDU’s Bavarian sibling. Mrs Merkel, though suspected by some of being out of sympathy with Catholicism, is unlikely to crusade against the church. Even weakened, it is a political force to be reckoned with.