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	German Bishop Tenders Resignation to Pope By Deborah Cole Sydney Morning Herald April 22, 2010 http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/german-bishop-tenders-resignation-to-pope-20100422-tfq8.html One of Germany's most divisive bishops has offered to resign after admitting to hitting children, his diocese said Thursday, hoping the move would allow the embattled Church a "new start". In an extremely rare step, the bishop of Augsburg in southern Germany, Walter Mixa, who is also bishop of the German military, offered to quit in a letter to German-born Pope Benedict XVI sent on Wednesday. "I am and have been fully aware of my own weaknesses," Mixa, known for incendiary comments on political matters that sparked outrage in the Jewish community and beyond, wrote in a letter published by the Augsburg diocese. "I ask forgiveness from everyone I may have acted wrongly towards and from everyone to whom I may have caused harm." A raging public debate over the allegations in recent weeks had delivered a further blow to the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, which has been reeling from a spiralling child sexual abuse scandal. The 68-year-old Mixa, who has not been accused of paedophilia, wrote he was resigning to prevent further damage to the Church and allow a "new start". It was not clear whether the pope would accept the resignation, as he did Thursday in the case of an Irish bishop accused of shielding paedophile priests in the Dublin diocese. But Church officials said it was likely. Mixa had at first rebuffed allegations that he beat children and youths at a Roman Catholic orphanage in the 1970s and 1980s in the face of several sworn statements from his accusers. But he has since admitted to slapping in the face children in his care and on Tuesday publicly asked for forgiveness. Meanwhile he has also faced charges of embezzling funds intended for the orphanages but has denied any wrongdoing. The high-profile resignation comes amid a ballooning sexual abuse scandal in the German Church, with hundreds of people coming forward in recent months saying they were molested as children by predatory priests. Long known as a hardliner and branded by critics as a "reactionary", the outspoken cleric has repeatedly taken stridently conservative positions on issues facing German society. In February he blamed the repeated sexual abuse of children at Church institutions in part on "the so-called sexual revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s. Three years ago, he accused Chancellor Angela Merkel and her government of reducing women to "birthing machines" for introducing policies intended to encourage women to have a family and continue working. He sparked a firestorm of protest for defining moral parallels between abortion and the Holocaust and has asserted that "atheism in practice" was behind the crimes of the Nazi period. And in 2007, he drew a furious response from the Israeli ambassador in Berlin for comparing the situation of the Palestinians in the occupied territories to Jews in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. Mixa denied trying to cause offence or minimise the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis, saying that he had aimed simply to drive key points home. "I am not one of those who likes to speak of 'on the one hand and on the other hand' when one should rather be clear," he told a German newspaper.
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