GERMANY
Deutsche Welle
The latest findings into the decades of abuse in the Regensburg Domspatzen Catholic boys choir implicate 49 church members. Victims described their time in the choir as like “a prison, hell and a concentration camp.”
A total of 547 young boys from the famous Regensburger Domspatzen choir were subjected to physical and sexual abuse at the hands of priests and teachers, according to the attorney tasked with investigating the alleged abuse.
Presenting his 450-page report into the findings, attorney Ulrich Weber, said he found 500 cases of physical abuse and 67 instances of sexual abuse spanning over six decades.
Of the 49 people church officials and teachers implicated in the report, nine were found to have been sexually abusive. Church officials had fostered a “culture of silence,” which allowed them to carry out such abuses for decades, Weber said. …
The choir was run by Georg Ratzinger, the elder brother of former Pope Benedict XVI, from 1964 to 1994, when most of the abuse is believed to have occurred.
Weber has repeatedly alleged that Ratzinger must have known of some of the cases, although he has denied having any information.
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