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	German Church Convention Shadowed by Sexual Abuse Insights April 15, 2010 http://news.nsw.uca.org.au/2010/german-church-convention_11-05-2010.htm Ahead of an ecumenical convention in Germany that tens of thousands of Roman Catholics and Protestants will attend, the head of the World Council of Churches has said that the current worldwide scandal of sexual abuse by clerics has implications for all Christian denominations. "It is not only a problem for the Catholic Church," said the Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, WCC general secretary, who is a keynote speaker at the May 12-16 Ecumenical Kirchentag (church convention) in Munich. "For the public as a whole, it is a simply question of the credibility of the churches," Mr Tveit said in an interview with the German Protestant news agency epd. More than 100,000 people are to gather in Munich, southern Germany, for the ecumenical church convention organised by Protestant and Catholic groups. Still, some church analysts are saying that the event is being overshadowed by the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. On May 11, during a visit to Portugal, Pope Benedict XVI issued strong comments and a call for penance to be done because of the scandal over paedophile priests. The Pope said the situation was, "born from sins within the church" and not from outside, and that the issue is "terrifying". "The church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness but also justice," Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper quoted Pope Benedict as saying to journalists aboard his plane to Portugal. Four days before the opening of the Kirchentag, the Pope accepted the resignation of German Bishop Walter Mixa, who is now being investigated by the Bavarian state attorney for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor, an allegation the bishop has denied. Bishop Mixa offered his resignation in April after claims of financial irregularities appeared in the media, along with reports linking him to child beatings in the 1970s and 1980s in a church-run children's home. In recent months, church reform movements such as We Are Church have been vociferous in demanding transparency about the sexual abuse cases that the German Catholic church is facing. Kirchentag organisers have now added to their program two major events that will deal with the issue of sexual abuse in church institutions. One of the events will be a panel discussion about sexual abuse experienced by children and young people, and Catholic Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier, who was appointed by his church to handle its response to abuse cases, will take part. Mr Tveit warned against "triumphalism" in other denominations over the scandal afflicting the Catholic Church. Founded in 1948 to promote Christian unity, the WCC has 349 member churches, principally Anglican, Orthodox and Protestant. The Catholic Church is not a member but works with the WCC in some areas. Organisers of the Kirchentag want the event to strengthen common ground between Protestants and Catholics in a country where each of these Christian traditions accounts for slightly less than a third of Germany's 82 million people. Still, the chairperson of the German (Catholic) Bishops' Conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, has warned against the abuse issue dominating the Munich event. "It should remain one issue among many important issues," said Archbishop Zollitsch. Protestants and Catholics in Germany have been organising their own separate conventions for many years, with each drawing tens of thousands of participants. The Munich gathering is only the second ecumenical Kirchentag; the first was in Berlin in 2003.
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