Spotlight, the movie about Boston Globe’s investigation of clergy sexual abuse and the cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church, won the Oscar 2016 award

ew Europe
February 29, 2016

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Spotlight, the movie about Boston Globe’s investigation of clergy sexual abuse and the cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church, won the Oscar 2015 award and reminded to the public the numerous worldwide child sex abuse scandals which hit the Catholic Church in the past years.

The Associated Press reported today that one of Pope Francis’ top advisers acknowledged that the Catholic Church “has made enormous mistakes” in allowing thousands of children to be raped and molested by priests over centuries as he testified at an extraordinary public hearing of an Australian investigative commission just a few blocks from the Vatican.

According to AP, the head of the Vatican Bank George Pell testified via videolink for four hours from Sunday night to early Monday morning from a Rome hotel to the Royal Commission sitting in Sydney. On 3 April 2013, the Australian authorities opened a national inquiry to investigate thousands of child sex abuse cases concerning Catholic priests in Australia.

Pell told to the lead counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness: “I’m not here to defend the indefensible. The church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those.” He added that the church had “mucked things up and let people down” and for too long had dismissed credible abuse allegations “in absolutely scandalous circumstances.”

In 2015, Pell was described by Peter Saunders, one of the commissioners for the protection of children, as a sociopath who needs to resign from his post. Pell was called by Australian authorities to testify in regard with the sex abuse scandal and Saunders told Australian media that the head of the Vatican Bank needs to resign from his post and return to Australia.

According to AP, this is the third time that Pell, has testified about the abuse scandal in Australia as the commission, agreed to let Pell testify from Rome because he was too ill to travel.

David Ridsdale, a sexual abuse victim, said that Pell’s “words are one thing,” but “actions are another,” stressing that the Church is obliged to financially help the sexual abuse survivors who got too traumatized by their abuse to support themselves financially.

Latest child sex abuse scandal, involving the Catholic Church in Europe

The latest child sex abuse scandal, involving the Catholic Church in Europe, was reported in Germany. On January, it was reported that 231 children, who participated in a choir led by Pope Benedict’s brother, were sexually and physically abused by priests.

The first allegations for the sexual and physical abuse of children in Domspatzen – which is the official choir for St. Peter’s Cathedral in Bavaria, Germany – made public in 2010 when well-known German composer, Franz Wittenbrink, told the German magazine Spiegel he had been abused while enrolled in the choir.

On the first month of the New Year, the lawyer who was hired for investigating the case, announced that 231 children in the choir were abused physically and sexually between 1953 and 1992, many by the director of the affiliated Roman Catholic school in Regensburg.

The Domspatzen choir was led between 1964 and 1994 by Georg Ratzinger, brother of Pope Benedict XVI and lawyer-investigator Ulrich Weber, said that he “must assume” that Georg Ratzinger had at least some knowledge of the children’s abuse. However, Ratzinger is not accused of committing any of the alleged crimes.