German Church Faces Child Abuse Charges

German Church Faces Child Abuse Charges
By NICHOLAS KULISH February 9, 2010 BERLIN

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The Roman Catholic Church faces yet another child abuse scandal, this time in Pope Benedict XVI's native Germany. The widening public scandal began last month with allegations that three priests at the elite Canisius Jesuit high school in Berlin had sexually abused students in the 1970s and '80s. In the midst of a steadily growing uproar over the handling of that case, the German magazine Der Spiegel published an article last weekend that said nearly 100 clerics and laypeople had been suspected of abusing children and teenagers nationwide since 1995....

The abuse of children by members of the clergy remains one of the most difficult issues for the church. In December the Vatican accepted the resignations of several Irish bishops after a report by the Irish government detailed the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children by Catholic priests in church-run residential schools, many of them run by the Christian Brothers.

The report found that both the Catholic hierarchy and Irish state agencies covered up complaints by 320 Irish children who said they were abused by priests between 1974 and 2004.

On Monday at the Vatican, Benedict told members of the Pontifical Council for the Family that he condemned the abuse of children by members of the clergy, but he has not commented directly on the situation in Germany.

Der Spiegel said that at least 94 clerics and laypeople had been suspected of abuse since 1995, based on a poll of 27 of Germany's 30 Catholic dioceses.

Irish Victims Write to Pope

DUBLIN (AP) - Irish victims of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy have written to Pope Benedict XVI asking him to take responsibility for the church's concealment of child molestation by forcing out bishops implicated in the decades of cover-up.

Their plea comes one week before a special Vatican summit meeting involving the pope and Ireland's bishops to prepare a response to scandals in the Irish church. Three bishops have already offered to resign. The letter's writers urge Benedict to write to all the people of Ireland, "accepting fully the harm that has been caused" by child-abusing priests, nuns and brothers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/world/europe/10germany.html