GERMANY’S LEADING Catholic lay organisation has called on Pope Benedict to speak out about the country’s growing clerical abuse scandal, including cases dating back to his time as archbishop of Munich.
Ahead of tomorrow’s Vatican visit of the head of the German bishops’ conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, German priests have appealed to the pope to broaden the scope of his pending pastoral letter to Irish Catholics to address the abuse scandal in his homeland.
The daily drip of abuse allegations continues to generate tension within the Berlin coalition government as well as within the church itself.
Justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger has characterised the attitude towards abuse in Catholic institutions as a “wall of silence”.
In an apparent swipe at Pope Benedict, she said this stemmed from a 2001 directive issued by the Vatican body he headed at the time, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
“This directive makes clear that even serious abuse allegations fall under papal confidentiality and thus should not be forwarded on outside the church,” said the minister, who has called for a “round table” meeting with the Catholic church to discuss clerical abuse and compensation.
German bishops have bridled at the idea of being singled out in public, forcing an intervention from Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“We have yet to talk about what would be a suitable instrument and I think the Catholic church has already gone a long way,” said Dr Merkel, referring to Archbishop Zollitsch’s public apology last week as well as a planned revision of church guidelines on dealing with abuse allegations.
“This all shows that the church is taking this all very seriously. We should wait and only speak out if we get the impression that something isn’t working well.”
Dr Merkel’s caution stems from last year’s controversy over Bishop Richard Williamson and his remarks on the Holocaust.
The German leader annoyed conservative Catholic members of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) for criticising Pope Benedict in public for calling Bishop Williamson into line.
In an attempt to defuse the situation, Dr Merkel’s minister for family affairs, Kristina Schröder, has proposed a broader meeting of all organisations who work with children to discuss the scandal that broke in January with abuse claims at a Jesuit school in Berlin.
The latest revelations surround decades of abuse at Kloster Ettal, a Benedictine monastery and boarding school in Bavaria.
Last week’s resignation of the school’s abbot, reportedly under pressure from Munich archbishop Reinhard Marx, has sparked a row with the Benedictine order, who accuse Dr Marx of acting beyond his authority.
With the German abuse allegations dating back several decades, speculation is growing that the scandal could catch up with one of Archbishop Marx’s predecessors.
“Joseph Ratzinger was bishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1981; he must therefore answer questions now about what he knew and how he acted,” said Christian Weisner, spokesman for the Catholic lay organisation “We are Church”.
“Abuse found its way into the highest level of the church, that much is clear.”
Meanwhile, the Dutch Catholic Church is asking an independent commission to look into reports of alleged sexual abuses by priests in response to an increasing number of victims coming forward.
More than 200 Catholics in the Netherlands have reported abuse, often from decades ago, after reports that three priests from the Salesian order abused pupils decades ago at a boarding school.
Dutch bishops said an external, independent examination had been ordered that will be led by Wim Deetman, a former minister of education and mayor of The Hague.