GERMANY
USA Today
David Gibson, Religion News Service January 9, 2016
Allegations that more than 200 boys in a Catholic-run choir and two connected schools in Germany were abused over the span of several decades, some of them sexually, have brought the church’s abuse scandal uncomfortably close to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, whose older brother directed the famous Bavarian choir during that time.
The allegations were reported by an attorney, Ulrich Weber, who had been hired by the Diocese of Regensburg last year to investigate claims of abuse at the Regensburger Domspatzen choir and two feeder schools between 1953 and 1992.
Weber told a news conference in Berlin on Friday that at least 50 of the 231 alleged victims made “plausible” claims of sexual abuse.
Benedict’s brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, conducted the historic choir from 1964 to 1994. Asked if Ratzinger, now 92 and still living in Regensburg, had known of the abuse, Weber said: “After my research, I must assume so.”
“The events were known internally and criticized, but they had almost no consequences,” Weber said. The cases are too old to be prosecuted, he said.
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