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	German Catholic Bishop Said to Resign As Charges Mount - Summary Earth Times April 22, 2010 http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/319929,german-catholic-bishop-said-to-resign-as-charges-mount--summary.html Berlin - A leading German Catholic bishop, Walter Mixa, was reported to have resigned Wednesday amid accusations that he had punched misbehaving teenagers, helped himself to orphanage funds and tried to bluster his way out of the charges. A newspaper, the Augsburger Allgemeine, said he had sent a letter to Pope Benedict XVI offering his resignation as bishop of Augsburg and as Germany's most senior Catholic military chaplain. The newspaper said it learned this from a reliable diocesan source. German Press Agency dpa was not immediately able to obtain confirmation from the church of the resignation. Mixa, one of the most conservative of Germany's 27 bishops, had been at the centre of a scandal that is separate from the claims that other Catholic bishops covered up sex abuse by rogue priests. Hours earlier in an unprecedented parting of ways, the head of the Catholic Church in Germany, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, had publicly urged Mixa to go on a long retreat while the web of financial and violence allegations against him are investigated. Mixa's problems mounted when he first denied "with a pure heart" that he ever hit the orphans while he was parish priest of the town of Schrobenhausen from 1975 to 1996, then changed his story to say he only slapped them and that the financial misdeeds were inadvertent. An investigator is studying why orphanage funds were spent on fine wine, a sun-tanning bed, over-priced art and the "gift" to Mixa of his expensive bishop's ring. The orphanage has already apologized to ex-orphans for their pain and suffering at Mixa's hands. Till 1996, Mixa chaired the board of the orphanage, which housed children and teens from broken homes. Several ex-inmates have given affidavits that he hit them with fists, a stick or a carpet-beater after nuns running the orphanage reported misbehaviour. The orphanage moved swiftly to appoint a lawyer as special investigator and bring the evidence into the open. Most of the events happened too long ago to be actionable in a court of law. In Germany, accusations against the church have focussed mainly on the clergy who tried to outrun the controversy by denials, instead of promptly owning up to errors and apologizing. Mixa is an outspoken defender of family child-rearing and critic of kindergartens. Zollitsch, who is chairman of the Conference of German Catholic Bishops, announced Wednesday that he had been pressing Mixa to take a temporary break from duties as bishop and leave Augsburg while the issues were investigated. Only the pope has the authority to fire or suspend a bishop.
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