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	Panel: No Penalties for Not Reporting Abuses Gulf Times May 23, 2010 http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=363250&version=1&template_id=39&parent_id=21 German churches, child protection agencies and officials have said that they opposed legal action against people who fail to report child abuse cases, many of them linked to Roman Catholic clergy. "There's general consensus amongst the table that there shouldn't be any new penalty," Germany's justice minister said. "We're thinking of the victims. They have to trust that they won't be called by police, before they are ready." The minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, spoke to reporters after the first meeting of a round table working group to discuss over 250 charges of child abuse in Germany, most of them at Catholic schools and dating from several decades ago. The initiative was announced in March after the minister accused the Catholic church of secrecy and called for an inquiry, prompting Catholic bishops to insist that non-Catholic institutions be probed as well, including Protestant churches. The Vatican has accused the media in particular of trying to smear the church and denies there has been a cover-up. But cases have popped up across Europe and beyond. Bishops in Ireland, Belgium and Germany have been forced to step down, accused of abuse or of hiding cases of abuse by priests or failing to act. Earlier this month, German-born Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg, in the Pope's native Bavaria. Mixa has been accused of sexual abuse of minors. German prosecutors are investigating Mixa, 69, who has denied the charges. Facing the worst crisis of his five-year papacy, Benedict, 83, has taken a less defensive tone, saying on a recent trip to Portugal that the church has "a very deep need" to recognise that it must do penitence for its sins. "Today we see in a truly terrifying way that the greatest persecution of the church does not come from outside enemies but is born of sin within the church," the Pontiff said in one of his most forthright comments on the scandal. The issue is particularly sensitive for Benedict, who was archbishop of Munich at a time when a priest in the archdiocese undergoing therapy for sexual abuse was returned to work. The Vatican has denied Benedict was involved in the decision. The German round table will discuss issues like compensation for victims and the statute of limitations at meetings in July and September, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said.
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