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	European Bishops Urge Victims to Go to the Police By Nicole Winfield Forbes March 31, 2010 http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/03/31/general-eu-church-abuse_7478962.html VATICAN CITY -- Swiss bishops urge victims of clerical abuse to file criminal complaints and are considering creating a national registry for pedophile priests. Danish bishops launch an investigation into decades-old claims. Austria's senior bishop celebrates a Holy Week Mass of repentance. A week after Pope Benedict XVI excoriated Irish bishops for gross errors of judgment in handling cases of priests who sexually abuse children, European bishops are admitting to mistakes, reaching out to victims and promising to act quickly when they learn about abuse cases. Their mea culpas and pledges to be more transparent and cooperative in the future come amid mounting public outrage over the scope of the abuse and what victims say has been a pattern of coverup by bishops and the Vatican itself to keep the cases quiet. "It's about improving things," Swiss Bishops Conference spokesman Walter Mueller said Wednesday, as Swiss bishops admitted in a statement that they had underestimated the problem and are now telling victims to consider filing criminal complaints. In Austria, Cardinal Christophe Schoenborn was to celebrate a Holy Week Mass on Wednesday evening for abuse victims in what is being billed as a "sign of repentance" just days before Easter. Schoenborn was named Vienna archbishop in 1995, tasked to clean up the mess in the diocese after Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer was forced to resign as archbishop over allegations he molested youths at a monastery in the 1970s.
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