Vatican says abuse scandal extends beyond Church
The Catholic Church today said its child abuse scandals were only part of a wider problem.
Sexual abuse scandals in Germany, the Pope’s homeland, and other countries were cause for
anguish but the Church’s response has been prompt and transparent, the Vatican said.
A spokesman said any abuse in the Church is “especially deplorable” given its educational and moral responsibilities. But he added the problem of child abuse was wider than cases that have surfaced within the Church and that focusing on the Church alone would not truly depict the problem.
Scandals over sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy and cover-ups by Church hierarchy have exploded in recent months in Ireland and in other countries including Germany and the Netherlands. The US church is still dealing with the financial and emotional fallout from years of scandals.
The German abuse allegations are particularly sensitive because Germany is the the Pope’s homeland and because the scandals involve a prestigious choir that was led by his brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, from 1964 to 1994.
Ratzinger has repeatedly said the sexual abuse allegations date from before his tenure as choir director. Asked today whether he knew of the allegations when he took over as head of the choir in 1964, he insisted he was not aware of the problem.
“These things were never discussed,” he told the Passauer Neue Presse German daily. “The problem of sexual abuse that has now come to light was never spoken of.”
Amid reports of beatings at primary schools that are considered “feeder schools” for the choir, Ratzinger said boys had complained to him but he had no idea how serious the allegations were.
“I ask the victims for pardon,” he told the paper.
The Vatican statement did not cite the choir, but did mention alleged abuses in Germany, Austria, Ireland and the Netherlands.
The spokesman defended the main ecclesiastical institutions involved, saying they have taken up the matters “promptly and decisively”.
“They have shown a desire for transparency, in a way they have accelerated bringing the problem to light by inviting the victims to speak up even when the cases dated to a while back,” he said.
He said the cases are pushing the Church toward dealing with the problem.
“While we can’t deny the gravity of the anguish the Church is going through, we cannot give up doing everything possible so that in the end positive results can also be achieved,” he said, citing as goals better children protection and the Church’s own “purification”.
Meanwhile in Austria the head of a Benedictine monastery in Salzburg admitted sexually abusing a child decades ago and offered to resign.
Arch-abbot Bruno Becker said he abused a 12-year-old boy more than 40 years ago, when he had not been ordained.
He said he informed church authorities last year after his victim contacted him, and apologised to him. Church authorities accepted the 64-year-old’s resignation immediately.
In the Netherlands Rotterdam Bishop Ad van Luyn has apologised to Dutch victims and called for an independent investigation into the sexual abuse of children by priests after 200 alleged victims contacted help services last week.
More than 170 students have claimed they were sexually abused at several Catholic high schools across Germany. Last week, the Regensburg Diocese said a former singer of the church choir – the one lead by the pope’s brother – had come forward with allegations of sexual abuse in the early 1960s.
There have also been reports of severe beatings by administrators at two primary feeder schools for the choir, one in Etterzhausen and one in Peilenhofen. One director, identified as Johann M., who headed the Etterzhausen school from 1953-1992, has been named in several allegations as being particularly abusive.
