RTE News
March 12, 2010
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0312/abuse.html
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| Pope Benedict Met with German bishops |
The head of Germany's Roman Catholic Church has issued a new apology to victims of paedophile priests after meeting at the Vatican with Pope Benedict XVI.
'I want to repeat here in Rome the apology that I made two weeks ago,' Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg told a news conference.
Archbishop Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops' Conference, said the German Church was taking steps to counsel victims, investigate abuse allegations and prevent a recurrence.
He noted paedophilia was not confined to the Catholic Church.
In recent weeks, more than 100 reports have emerged of abuse at Catholic institutions in Germany.
Germany's shock revelations began in late January when an elite Jesuit school in Berlin admitted systematic sexual abuse of pupils by two priests in the 1970s and 1980s.
Among other boarding schools implicated is one attached to the Domspatzen Regensburg cathedral's thousand-year-old choir, which was run for 30 years by Georg Ratzinger, Pope Benedict's brother.
On Tuesday Ratzinger, 86, said that the alleged sexual abuse in the 1950s and 1960s - before his time - was 'never discussed'.
Most of the priests concerned are not expected to face criminal charges because the alleged crimes took place too long ago, but there have been growing calls for a change in the law and for the Church to pay compensation.
The German government also spoke out on the scandal, with Education Minister Annette Schavan saying there should be 'zero tolerance' of the sexual abuse of children.
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