Pope Distraught Over Sex Scandal in Germany

According to The New York Times, a sexual abuse scandal in Europe has landed at the doorstep of Pope Benedict XVI.  A senior church official acknowledged Friday, Mar. 12, that a German archdiocese made “serious mistakes” in handling an abuse case while the pope served as its archbishop. Freiburg Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, president of a conference of German bishops, discussed the scandal in a meeting with the pope on Friday. 

According to CNN, the archbishop said he did not believe that priests’ celibacy caused the sexual-abuse problem. Reportedly, a priest accused of molesting boys was given therapy in 1980 and was later allowed to resume pastoral duties, before committing further abuses and being prosecuted. Pope Benedict, who at the time headed the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, approved the priest’s transfer for therapy.    

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi, said he had no comment on the matter. Problems in the German church have already come close to the pope, whose brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, 86, directed a choir connected to a boarding school where former students have come forward with abuse claims.

Archbishop Zollitsch said the German church had vowed to investigate all allegations of abuse, encouraging victims to identify themselves even if the abuse happened decades ago. In recent weeks, hundreds of people who say they are abuse victims have come forward. According, The New York Times,“The cases are growing every day,” said Thomas Pfister, a lawyer appointed by the German church to investigate abuse cases.
According to The New York Times, Pfister has revealed that more than 100 people had contacted him so far. “Every day I receive e-mails from around the world from people who have been abused,” Pfister said. “There has been a very big silence. Now they want to have a voice.” The scandals could undermine Benedict’s moral authority, especially because they cut particularly close to the pope himself.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s main doctrinal arm, has led Vatican investigations into abuse for four years before Benedict assuming the papacy in 2005.