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	German Bishop Apologizes for Irregularities with Orphans' Money Earth Times April 12, 2010 http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/318249,german-bishop-apologizes-for-irregularities-with-orphans-money.html Augsburg,Germany - Controversial German Catholic bishop Walter Mixa apologized Monday for buying antiques for the house where he lived as priest, using funds that belonged to an orphanage. Mixa, who is bishop of Augsburg and a spokesman for the church's conservative wing, said the financial irregularities had been corrected in 1996. He had earlier been accused of slapping and spanking teenagers from broken homes at the Catholic orphanage. "I have always been primarily a pastor and priest. It could have been that I did not pay exacting attention to financial technicalities. I left that to others who understood it better," he said in a statement. "That was evidently my mistake, which I admit and since regret." The allegations revolve around Mixa's period as parish priest of the town of Schrobenhausen from 1975 to 1996, before he was promoted to a bishop. He is also Germany's chief Catholic military chaplain. He has cancelled a trip this week to visit troops in Afghanistan. The Schrobenhausen orphanage has appointed a lawyer, Sebastian Knott, as special investigator to check out all the claims, which broke amid a wider scandal over sex abuse in US, Irish, German and Italian church institutions from the 1950s to the 1980s. A news report said Friday that furniture and religious equipment costing the equivalent of 70,000 euros (93,000 dollars) had been bought for the priest's house, or presbytery, using orphanage funds. It said Mixa was billed for the sum after he left town and paid it. In his statement, Mixa said none of the antiques had been for his private use, but were needed to furnish the presbytery and church. Mixa has publicly denied he hit any children. A Munich newspaper, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, says it has affadavits from seven people claiming Mixa hit them before 1980. But other ex-orphans have insisted there was never corporal punishment in the home.
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