Pope Faces Claims He Covered up German Sex Abuse Case, Rob Crilly, Telegraph, March 26, 2010

Pope Faces Claims He Covered up German Sex Abuse Case

By Rob Crilly
Telegraph
March 26, 2010

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/7528000/Pope-faces-claims-he-covered-up-German-sex-abuse-case.html

The Vatican has defended the Pope over charges that he failed to act against allegations of sex abuse

The Pope faced fresh accusations of covering up child abuse yesterday as it emerged he was present at a meeting where Church officials decided to allow a paedophile priest to continue working.

The allegations dating to his time as Archbishop of Munich came a day after he was accused of covering up attacks on up to 200 boys at a deaf school in the American state of Wisconsin.

The latest claims centred on how much he knew about a decision to allow a priest to resume pastoral duties in Germany in the 1980s.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he led a meeting that approved the transfer of Father Peter Hullermann to a new diocese, despite him being known to be a paedophile.

His office also received a copy of a memo explaining that Hullermann would return to pastoral work days after starting therapy. Hullermann went on to attack more children and was convicted of sexual abuse in 1986.

The revelations about the level of the Pope's involvement in the case appeared to cast doubt on the Catholic Church's previous account of the matter.

Earlier this month, Monsignor Gerhard Gruber, then Cardinal Ratzinger's deputy, said he took full responsibility for the decision to allow Hullermann to resume pastoral duties.

The Munich Archdiocese acknowledged that "bad mistakes" had been made, but attributed them to officials subordinate to Cardinal Ratzinger rather than to the cardinal himself.

Father Lorenz Wolf, judicial vicar at the Munich Archdiocese, said the memo was routine and "unlikely to have landed on the archbishop's desk".

Church officials transferred Father Hullermann to new parishes and allowed him to work with children, even after his conviction. He was finally suspended earlier this month as sex abuse allegations surfaced in Germany.

The claims came a day after the Pope was accused of personally covering up child sex abuse by halting an investigation into a Wisconsin priest suspected of molesting boys between 1950 and 1975. Victims said Father Lawrence Murphy had assaulted them in his office, his car and in their dormitory beds.

Cardinal Ratzinger, who was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the body responsible for dealing with particularly grave sins – was alerted to the allegations in 1986 but the case was dropped after Murphy wrote directly to the future pontiff.

Yesterday, supporters attempted to rally round the Pope claiming there had been no cover up and accusations were being driven by malice.

A strongly-worded editorial in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, labelled the allegations "clearly an ignoble attempt to strike at Pope Benedict and his closest aides at any cost".

One of the Pope's top aides, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, said there was "a conspiracy" against the Church, without specifying who was responsible.

French bishops also published a letter of support to the Pope saying that they all felt "shame and regret over the abominable acts" of sex abuse against children by some Catholic priests.

"Those who commit these acts disfigure our church, hurt Christian communities and spread suspicion over all members of the clergy," they wrote.

Meanwhile, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales insisted the Pope was taking strong action to tackle it. Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, said there was no hiding place for those who abused children.

"The child abuse committed within the Roman Catholic Church and its concealment is deeply shocking and totally unacceptable," he wrote. "I am ashamed of what happened, and understand the outrage and anger it has provoked."

Earlier this month, the Pope issued an unprecedented Papal letter to Irish Catholics, designed to defuse the spiralling scandal over clerical abuse there.