Friday, March 12, 2010

German Church Leader Meets Pope to Address Scandal

The head of the German Catholic church met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Friday to address a worsening child abuse scandal that erupted this winter in the pope’s native Germany and has come close to the pope’s own brother.

After the 45-minute meeting, the German official, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, told reporters that Pope Benedict had expressed dismay at the mounting reports of abuse, but said the pontiff was “very satisfied” with steps the German church had taken to address the scandal, which have included promises to investigate all allegations of abuse.

“The holy father was very satisfied with our decisions,” Archbishop Zollitsch told reporters. “I’m grateful for the encouragement he gave me to continue carrying out our measures in a decisive and courageous way.”

The archbishop also asked forgiveness from victims of priestly abuse, echoing earlier apologies he had made in Germany, where newspapers have been filled with reports of physical and sexual abuse of former Catholic school students dating back to the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Pope Benedict has not commented directly on the situation in Germany, but as abuse scandals widened across Europe, the Vatican on Tuesday released a note saying that local churches in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands had responded with “timely and decisive action” to allegations.

The furor over the allegations has edged near the brother of the pope, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, bringing the shadow of scandal within sight of the pope, who served as the archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982 and led Vatican investigations into abuse for four years before assuming the papacy in 2005.

As new accusations of abuse rocked the German church over the past two months, questions emerged about whether the pope’s brother could have known about physical and sexual abuse at two boarding schools connected to a boys’ choir he directed for 30 years, from 1964 to 1994.

Monsignor Ratzinger, 86, has apologized for slapping students in the years before corporal punishment was banned in Bavaria, but he said the allegations of sexual abuse are from a period before he was leading the choir.

Archbishop Zollitsch said he and the pope did not talk about whether Monsignor Ratzinger had any role in the scandal.
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SIC: NYT