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	Catholic Orphanage Says It Cannot Make German Bishop Apologize Earth Times April 15, 2010 http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/318885,catholic-orphanage-says-it-cannot-make-german-bishop-apologize.html Schrobenhausen, Germany - A Catholic orphanage in Germany apologized Thursday to former inmates for beatings, but said it could not force a Catholic bishop alleged to have hit the children to say he's sorry. The unusual move put a spotlight back on Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg, who is also Germany's chief Catholic military chaplain. He has denied he hit any children 30 years ago when he was a parish priest in the southern town of Schrobenhausen and oversaw the orphanage. The allegations arose during a wider scandal over both violence and sex abuse at Catholic institutions up to the 1990s. Most of the children in the institution came from broken homes or had parents who could not cope. The orphanage has engaged a lawyer as special investigator to examine claims that then-father Mixa caned children or hit them with his fist or a carpet-beater when nuns reported they had misbehaved. A letter has been sent to half a dozen complainants saying the orphanage management was "appalled" by the allegations. The letter admitted that no apology could undo what had been done, nor could it truly ease the pain and resentment of the complainants toward the orphanage and Bishop Mixa. "Unfortunately we don't have any influence on how Dr Mixa deals with these allegations," the letter said. Mixa is an outspoken conservative among Germany's 27 Catholic bishops. He admitted on Monday to accounting irregularities at the orphanage, but said he later paid the full cost of presbytery furniture which was originally bought at orphanage expense. Damning new claims meanwhile emerged against an agnostic boarding school, where a former headmaster is alleged to have forced boys to have sex him and to have punished boys who resisted his advances. Thorsten Kahl, a lawyer, said Gerold Becker, headmaster of the non-church Odenwald School, had been the legal guardian of one of the abused boys in the 1980s. He said another boy abused by the principal had later committed suicide. Becker has admitted sex with pupils.
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