ROME
Crux
By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor January 12, 2016
ROME — Recently news broke in Germany about widespread sexual and physical abuse at a well-known Catholic boys’ choir, news that ricocheted around the world because when the abuse occurred, the choir was being directed by Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, the brother of emeritus Pope Benedict XVI.
The data was truly shocking: at least 231 children abused over four decades, from the 1950s to the 1990s, representing one out of every three boys in the famed Regensburg “Domspatzen” choir during that time.
A lawyer who compiled the report said that although there are no accusations of abuse against Ratzinger himself, who’s now 91, the research leads him to believe the pope’s brother must have known what was happening.
Around the same time, the Vatican was reeling from the latest twists in the “Vatileaks 2.0” saga, centering on leaks of secret papal documents revealing various kinds of financial corruption or dubious expenditures: cardinals living in swanky apartments, money being used to influence sainthood causes, all kinds of people who aren’t supposed to getting access to low-costs goods in the Vatican such as tobacco and gas, and so on.
(It’s called “2.0” in reference to the first Vatileaks scandal in 2012, involving the theft of documents from Pope Benedict by his then-butler.)
Both stories are embarrassing for the Vatican and for the Church, and both raise troubling questions: How could such misconduct have gone for so long without being detected, and what sort of accountability will be imposed so it doesn’t happen again?
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.