By Allan Hall
Yhe Telegraph
June 16, 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/7832908/German-bishop-who-quit-over-abuse-fights-to-be-reinstated.html
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| Bishop Walter Mixa says he was "forced out" |
A senior German bishop who resigned earlier this year after admitting hitting children in his care is fighting to get his job back.
Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg, in southern Germany, claims he acted in haste in stepping down and now says he was "forced out".
He found himself at the eye of the abuse storm in April when men and women once resident in a children's' home he oversaw in the 70s and 80s came forward to say he flogged them on a regular basis.
They said they were punched in the face and thrashed with a carpet beater as he screamed: "You have the devil inside you and I will beat him out!"
Bishop Mixa, 69, at first denied the allegations but later said he may have given children "a clip around the ear".
A staunchly conservative churchman and close friend of Pope Benedict XVI, he resigned from his post as Bishop of Augsburg after pressure from leading Vatican and German Church officials.
But he has now moved back into his palace in Augsburg and is planning to appeal directly to the Pope asking to be reinstated.
He said he tried to withdraw his resignation letter three days after he posted it to Rome in April but was not allowed to do so.
Bishop Mixa claims the text was drafted by other clerics who wanted him gone and he now regrets his action.
In his letter of resignation to the Pope, the bishop wrote: "I ask the forgiveness of all those to whom I may have been unfair and to those who I may have caused heartache."
But he now claims the pressure to resign was "like purgatory" and he is planning an appeal to the Vatican using church law which states his resignation would be invalid if it was made due to "outside pressure".
Bishop Mixa accused the head of Bavaria's Catholic bishops, Archbishop Reinhard Marx, as well as the country's top Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of rushing to the Pope with a "so-called abuse case based on what amounts to no more than eight handwritten sentences on a highly dubious scribbled note".
"Instead, they should have been 'more brotherly'," Mixa said. He was also accused of misusing church money by buying dubious artworks and fine wine which was for his own consumption.
His move back into the bishop's palace has caused a stir among Church officials, who view it as an act of defiance.
As a former bishop he no longer has the right to occupy his old apartment and must first apply for permission from the diocese administrator. "It remains unclear whether he has done this," added the local paper.
Mixa said he plans to speak personally with Pope Benedict XVI in July.
"He invited me for a conversation," he told the newspaper Die Welt. "Above all I want to discuss how the situation should further develop."
A lay group called We Are The Church said Mixa risked becoming a "liability" for the church. The current ecclesiastical mood in Germany is not one that would readily welcome him back. One member of the group said: "He should remember that his diocese is more important than his personal ambitions."
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