Pope's former diocese deluged by daily 'tsunami' of sex abuse claims

Published on Friday 19 March 2010 20:54

THE Pope's former diocese is facing a "tsunami" of new allegations of physical and sexual abuse, the head of its new task force said yesterday.

Elke Huemmeler, who leads the diocese's newly founded abuse prevention task force, said new allegations were being received on a daily basis.

Today, the Pope will address the issue of sex abuse in Ireland in a letter to Catholics in the country.

Ms Huemmeler said there were about 120 cases on record, some 100 of them at the nearby Ettal monastery boarding school, run by Benedictine monks. She stresses, however, her role is not to deal with the old cases, but help set up the prevention programme.

Yesterday, her new Task Force on Sexual Abuse Prevention, backed by Archbishop Reinhard Marx, began its work. By November, it plans a comprehensive programme to fight abuse in Roman Catholic institutions. It is the first of its kind in the German Church, which has been deeply shaken by allegations of sexual and physical attacks on minors since the beginning of the year.

When the first abuse cases broke at Ettal about three weeks ago, Ms Huemmeler sat down with colleagues to find a way out of the "disaster".

"I don't think I have ever seen us that shocked," Ms Huemmeler, head of the diocese's social work unit, said about the Church leadership. Archbishop Marx has said he wants to bring out everything into the open and also named a commission to comb through old records to find out who knew what and when.

The diocese now has three specialists to listen to and investigate victims' allegations of abuse, Ms Huemmeler says. The third was named just this week because the workload has grown immensely in a short time.

Last week, the diocese confirmed the case of a priest who was transferred in 1980 to Munich. That came after three sets of parents alleged he had abused their children in Essen, the diocese there said. The priest underwent therapy, but then returned to work with youngsters. He was convicted of abuse in 1986.

Pope Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was Archbishop of Munich and Freising at the time of the priest's transfer from Essen to Munich. The diocese has said he knew about the transfer, but not about the priest's continued work in Bavarian congregations after he assumed his duties at the Vatican.

Erwin Wild, then spokesman of the diocese's council of priests, said that he and his colleagues were not informed by Cardinal Ratzinger that the priest was an offender, which he thought was wrong.

Sex abuse allegations have surfaced in several other countries in recent weeks. In neighbouring Switzerland, the Basel diocese yesterday admitted that it hired a priest in 1971 knowing that he had sexually abused children. It said it made an unjustifiable assessment when it hired Father Gregor Mueller, knowing he was dismissed from a previous post in Germany for sexual abuse.

In Austria, a man alleged he was sexually and physically abused in 1978 as a 14-year-old student at a boarding school affiliated with a Benedictine monastery in the western province of Tyrol.

The man, now 46, said he and others were groped by a priest as they slept in the dormitory. He said that when he reported the incident he was slapped and had to promise not to tell his parents or anyone else.

In Italy, the bishop of the northern diocese of Bolzano apologised to victims and promised to go to prosecutors with any cases that rest within the statue of limitations. Bishop Karl Golser issued an apology after several victims came forward alleging physical and sexual abuse at a Bolzano convent and church school in the 1950s and 1960s.

He also launched an internet campaign to urge more victims to come forward.

• Read a Pastoral letter from Pope Benedict here