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  Jesuit Sexual Abuse Scandal Widens

IOL
February 3, 2010

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=24&art_id=nw20100203123930996C870213

GERMANY -- Berlin - A scandal over sexual abuse by Jesuit priests in Germany in the 1970s and 80s snowballed on Wednesday as a third teacher confessed, more victims came forward and further schools were implicated.

Earlier this week, the elite Canisius school in Berlin admitted systematic sexual abuse by at least two Roman Catholic priests, named in media reports as Peter R and Wolfgang S, who both left the order in the 1980s.

The head of the Jesuits in Germany revealed on Tuesday that a third priest, named in newspapers as Bernhard E., has been suspended after admitting abusing one pupil after a lawyer representing three alleged victims confronted him.

The priest taught at Canisius from 1970-1, and worked with children in schools and in other functions in other cities including Hamburg and Hanover until 1983 before helping found a charity, the German Jesuit society said.

"The cases from the 1970s in Hanover ... give rise to the fear that there were similar assaults at other places," said the society's head Stefan Dartmann.

The third priest has since turned himself over to the police.

Press reports said that close to 30 cases of abuse have now been reported including in Hamburg, Berlin and St. Blasien in southern Germany.

Most of the cases may now be too old for prosecutors to pursue.

 
 

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