The following is really a more extended account of the AP report posted two boxes above, but since that post became overly long on account of the John Allen article, I am putting this in a new box... BTW, when the New York Times assigns correspondents to track a developing story the way it has done since a 'direct' link appeared to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, they should be praised for their journalistic enterprise, but you know the enterprise is motivated by the fact that they sense a Watergate-like opportunity here! Someone somewhere in the leftie world has probably already used the term Munichgate gloatingly!
German archbishop expresses
shame over scandal
By JACK EWING
March 18, 2010
VIERZEHNHEILIGEN, Germany — The leader of the Catholic Church in Bavaria expressed “deep shame” on Thursday for cases of sexual molestation that have shaken the home region of Pope Benedict XVI, and said he was in favor of changing German law so that Church officials would have a greater duty to report suspected child abuse to prosecutors.
Reinhard Marx, the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, said he felt “deep shame” over the reports of abuse of children in Church-run schools during a news conference on Thursday.
But in an often
combative [It's combative to speak up for your side???] exchange with reporters at a hilltop pilgrimage site north of Nuremberg, the church official, Archbishop Reinhard Marx, defended the overall integrity of the Church and said it would never be possible to ensure there is no abuse.
He also refused to discuss individual cases or shift any responsibility to Benedict XVI.
“I reject any blanket suspicion,” Archbishop Marx said,
praising the thousands of people who work for the Church [Rightly so. The overwhelming majority of good honest priests must never be overlooked in all these discussions]. “There will never be 100-percent security in this world; we can only make a 100-percent effort.”
The archbishop’s comments came after revelations last week that a priest in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising who was accused of molesting boys was allowed to continue working with children, even after being convicted of abuse. He was suspended from duty only this week as scrutiny of the case grew amid questions over the role Benedict had played in its handling in 1980, when he led the archdiocese.
At that time, the future Pope, Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, approved the priest’s transfer for therapy. A subordinate took full responsibility for allowing the priest to later resume pastoral work, the archdiocese said in a statement. Archbishop Ratzinger went on to supervise the Vatican’s review of abuse cases before succeeding Pope John Paul II.
Archbishop Marx, who now heads the Munich archdiocese,
refused to discuss specifics of that case.
[That's not good at all! It raises the suspicion level that's already high enough as it is! Archbishop Marx owes the public a full explanation about the case of Priest H. Thus far, we only know what the media have uncovered.]
Speaking Thursday outside a meeting of Bavarian bishops near a famous basilica, he said he was open to financially compensating abuse victims, and to extending the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases.
Many cases come to light decades after the fact, when the victims are adults, often in middle age. Archbishop Marx said the church had a moral obligation to investigate reports of abuse even if the statute of limitations had expired.
At the same time, Archbishop Marx criticized news reports that have cited anonymous sources for accusations against priests or the church. “The examination of the past must remain just,” he said.
Asked if the Pope himself should speak to Bavarian Catholics on the abuse cases, Father Marx said Benedict had already repeatedly addressed the issue around the world. “I don’t sense any deficit of support from the Pope,” Archbishop Marx said. “It’s clear to everyone where he stands.”
On Saturday, Benedict is expected to release a pastoral letter to Catholics in Ireland, where a separate abuse scandal has embroiled the Church and now threatens to topple the leading Irish cardinal. The Pope has said the letter would assist with “repentance, healing and renewal.”
Addressing the issue of Church secrecy in abuse cases, Archbishop Marx said the Bavarian bishops were in favor of strengthening the duty of Church officials to report cases of abuse, and said the Church would do so independent of any legislative changes.
“We really need a culture of seeing and attentiveness,” said Ludwig Schick, the archbishop of nearby Bamberg, who also attended the press conference. There should not be “taboo zones where sexual as well as physical abuse is possible,” Archbishop Schick said.
The basilica where the archbishop spoke traces its origins to a shepherd who, in the 15th century, had a vision of 14 children who told him to build a chapel on the site. “Vierzehnheiligen” means “14 holy ones.”
The basilica, designed by the Baroque architect Johann Balthasar Neumann, remains a destination for pilgrims as well as people who hope to benefit from its healing powers.
The bishops’ gathering attracted a lone protester, 52-year-old Sigrid Behm, who stood in front of the basilica wearing a traffic sign around her neck of the kind used to warn children of a dangerous crossing. Ms. Behm had placed a lace cloth on the ground before her with the handwritten slogan, “Not to the cloister — to jail.”
Archbishop Marx said he and other bishops had prayed in the basilica for forgiveness.
[Archbishop Marx has posted a statement following the Vierzehnheiligen meeting on the archdiocese site. I will translate the paragraph that refers to Benedict XVI (I broke it up into separate sentences for easier reading):
In all their efforts in the battle against sex abuses, the Bavarian bishops acknowledge that they have been encouraged by the Holy Father and they thank him for this.
Benedict XVI has for years been tireless in admonishing that there should be zero tolerance in dealing with sexual abuses.
The bishops conference of Freising knows that the situation is a spiritual call in the sense of the 'purification of memory' that John Paul II formulated in his Jubilee Year apologies, which was emphasized yesterday and today at Holy Mass in the Vierzehnheiligen basilica.
The bishops thank their priests, religious and other co-workers for serving with loyalty and devotion.
The myth of the 'silent' Pope:
He has said all there is to say
about sex offenses by priests
Guest Commentary
by MONS. ROBERT ZOLLITSCH
Archbishop of Freiburg
President, Deutsche Bischofskonferenz
Translated from
March 18, 2010
My Pope. Your Pope. The Pope must for the moment show proof of so many things. Often, not enough will listen to him, and now, across a wide front, he is reproached for being 'silent' on the sex abuse scandals affecting the Catholic Church in Germany. What more will they ask of this man tomorrow? That he should sit at a round table discussion? That he should clear up the thicket of expired statutes of limitations and claims for damages? Everyone is asking the Pope to do what it is they want specifically of him.
The wonderment of a German newspaper in its online edition why the Pope has been silent about the terrible events in the Odenwald school shows how much editorial judgment has gone astray.
[Because Odenwald is a public school with lay teachers and has nothing to do with the Church.]
The myth of the silent Pope ignores the fact that there isn't a Pope for Germany and another for Spain. There is just one Pope for the universal Church. As a consequence, Benedict XVI must be careful what he says, where he says it, to whom he says it, and how he says it.
Quickly there were demands that the Pope should take a stand on the German problem because he is German. That is as shortsighted as it is superficial.
The head of the Catholic Church must find words to say about these terrible abuses against minors that will be heard by the whole world and that apply to everyone, even when he is speaking of a particular case.
He has found those words and said them. [
Not once, but many times! Not just now but in the past.] The significance of a statement does not grow depending on how many times it is repeated. That's how it is in life, especially about existential matters.
I know from my conversation with the Pope how shaken he is by the sexual abuse of children by priests, more so now that the scandal has struck Germany.
He has unequivocally spoken about what he calls 'this monstrous crime':
"No words I can say can describe the pain and suffering brought on by such abuses...Nor can I find the right words to express the resulting harm to the Church".
When he visited the United States, he asked of us - and he meant it for all bishops worldwide - to do everything in our power to bring 'healing and reconciliation' and to be there "for all who were harmed".
What can he say that is new? His words have validity - as well as consequences.
[The consequences are that the local Church and its pastors have to take responsibility for what happens in their dioceses and parishes, set up mechanisms to set right what went wrong - with the victims as well as the offenders - and minimize the chances of recurrence. Ever again, if possible!]
As terrible as the situation in Germany is, what has already been said cannot be said over and over. What has been said preserves its weight if it is not being said again and again!
P.S.
Didn't I just say the New York Times is doing a Watergate-style operation on the one case so far that is linked in any way to Joseph Ratzinger? Here is the latest 'witness' they have uncovered - and despite the innuendo and the obvious guilt-by-association statements in the headline and the first six paragraphs, go down to the seventh paragraph where the psychiatris says he had no contact with Archbishop Ratzinger at all nor did he know if the latter got the information he provided since his main contact was with another prelate who has since died.
Psychiatrist says Church
was warned about priest
By NICHOLAS KULISH and KATRIN BENNHOLD
Published: March 18, 2010
ESSEN, Germany — The German archdiocese led by the future Pope Benedict XVI ignored repeated warnings in the early 1980s by a psychiatrist treating a priest accused of sexually abusing boys that he should not be allowed to work with children, the psychiatrist said.
“I said, ‘For God’s sake, he desperately has to be kept away from working with children,’” the psychiatrist Werner Huth said in an interview Thursday. “I was very unhappy about the entire story.”
Dr. Huth said he was concerned enough that he set three conditions for treating the priest, Peter Hullermann: that he stay away from young people and alcohol and be supervised by another priest at all times.
Dr. Huth said he issued the warnings — explicit, both written and oral — before the future Pope, then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, left Germany for the Vatican in 1982.
In 1980, following abuse complaints from parents in Essen that the priest did not deny, Archbishop Ratzinger approved a decision to move the priest to Munich for therapy.
[The writer does not make clear if Huth treated the priest in Essen, or in Munich. One assumes it was in Essen, since he is in Essen now - if that was so, we are back at one of the basic logical questions in this case: why did the Diocese of Essen send the priest off to Munich if he already had a psychiatrist in Essen? And why did Munich accept a priest sent to them with a bad record unless it was in keeping with the prevailing culture of the time, when priests were transferred to other assignments in order to get them away from complainants!
This is why it would be so much better - AND WISER ALTOGETHER - if the Archdiocese of Munich itself provided all the relevant information they have ASAP and all at once, instead of watching the details being uncovered by the media! Until they do this, the index of suspicion in the minds of the critics and of the public they influence will just keep rising. And the longer Archbishop Marx does not say anything, the more likely it is that if the suspicion level escalates, as it is bound to do, the pressure will inevitably be be for the Pope himself to explain his personal recollection of what he did or did not do about the case and the classic 'what did he know and when did he know it?'
Although I have imagined from the beginning that once he was provided with a full dossier of the information about Fr. H as it was presented to him at the time he approved giving him parish lodings, then he himself would make the unprecedented gesture of saying - "This is how I was involved here...'
I bet by now the media sleuths - all hoping to be the new Woodward and Bernstein - have been working on Mons. Gruber to get him to reveal something damaging to the Pope. Like for instance, that he was told by Archbishop Marx to take 'full responsibility' for giving Father H a pastoral assignment, even if Archbishop Ratzinger knew all along what he was doing, or worse, told him to do so! Gruber is 81 and he could be very vulnerable to media pressure if there was any weakness or inaccuracy in the way the Archdiocese of Munich presented this story.]
Despite the psychiatrist’s warnings, Father Hullermann was allowed to return to parish work almost immediately after his therapy began, interacting with children as well as adults. He was
promptly accused(?) of molesting other boys and was convicted in 1986 of sexual abuse in Bavaria.
Benedict’s then-deputy, Gerhard Gruber, said that he was to blame for that personnel decision, which he called a “serious mistake.”
The psychiatrist said in an interview he did not have any direct communications with Archbishop Ratzinger and did not know if the archbishop knew about his warnings. Though he said he spoke with several senior church officials, Dr. Huth’s main contact at the time was a bishop, Heinrich Graf von Soden-Fraunhofen, who died in 2000.
Even after his conviction in 1986, Father Hullermann, now 62, continued working with altar boys for many years. He was suspended just this past Monday for ignoring a 2008 church order not to work with youths.
[Archbishop Marx has even failed to explain why Fr. H was given new pastoral assignments after his conviction. Any way you look at it, the fact is the diocese did tolerate Fr. H for 30 years (the first 13 months of it when Cardinal Ratzinger was Archbishop.]
Mr. Gruber did not respond to repeated attempts to contact him for comment at home. Attempts to reach the archdiocese for reaction on Thursday night were also unsuccessful.
On Wednesday, speaking generally about the question of Father Hullermann’s therapy, a spokesman at the Munich archdiocese, Bernd Oostenryck, said, “Thirty years ago the subject was treated very differently in society.”
“There was a tendency to say it could be therapeutically treated,” said Mr. Oostenryck.
Father Hullermann began working in 1978 as a chaplain in the St. Andreas church in Essen, an industrial city in the Ruhr region not far from where he was born in Gelsenkirchen. The three sets of parents who complained to the church, said that Father Hullermann had “sexual relations” with their children in February 1979, according to a statement this week by the diocese in Essen.
In the minutes taken by the priest in charge of the parish at the meeting with the parents, he noted that they “would not file charges under the current circumstances” in order to protect their children. For decades it was common practice in the church not to involve law enforcement in cases of sexual abuse. Vowing to change that, Bavarian bishops on Thursday called for a law making it mandatory for church officials to report any suspected sexual or physical abuse to prosecutors.
Spared prosecution after his transgressions in Essen, which according to the statement released by the diocese he “did not dispute,” Father Hullermann instead was ordered to undergo therapy with Dr. Huth. The archdiocese said that order was approved personally by Archbishop Ratzinger.
Dr. Huth said that he had recommended one-on-one sessions, which Father Hullermann refused. Instead he took part in group sessions, usually seated in a circle with eight other patients, who had a mix of different disorders including pedophilia. Dr. Huth, 80, said that Father Hullermann had problems with alcohol for which he prescribed him with medication, but that he was “neither invested nor motivated” in his therapy.
“He did the therapy out of fear that he would lose his post,” he said, adding that he did it out of “fear of punishment.”
Dr. Huth, who was authorized by Father Hullermann to report to church officials about his treatment on request, said he shared his concerns with them frequently. He said that the three constraints he put on Father Hullermann — that he stay away from children, that he not drink alcohol, and that he be accompanied and supervised at all times by another priest — were only intermittently enforced.
Not long after the therapy began, Father Hullermann returned to unrestricted work with parishioners. Archbishop Ratzinger was still in charge in Munich, but church officials have not said if the Pope was kept up to date about the case.
After the future Pope’s departure in 1982, Father Hullermann moved to the nearby town of Grafing in September of that year, where he taught religion at a local public school. Two years later police began investigating him on suspicion of sexual abuse of minors.
The court commissioned another psychiatrist, Johannes Kemper, to examine him and write an expert opinion for the 1986 trial. “Alcohol played a big role,” said Dr. Kemper, 66, who had examined Father Hullermann in his practice for half a day. As a prelude to sexual abuse, Dr. Kemper said, “He drank and then under the influence of alcohol he watched porn videos with the youths.”
Little information is publicly available about the court proceedings. The court file was sealed after Father Hullermann’s probationary period ended. Dr. Kemper said at the trial the victims waited outside the courtroom before and came in one at a time to testify. He did not remember exactly how many victims there were, saying there were “between five and ten.”
The prosecutor’s office in Munich confirmed Thursday that Father Hullermann was convicted of sexual abuse of minors and for distributing pornographic images, according to a spokesperson for the office, Andrea Titz.
Little information is publicly available about the case. The court file was sealed after Father Hullermann’s probationary period ended.
The mayor of Garching an der Alz, where Father Hullermann worked for 21 years after his conviction, was sharply critical of the Church Thursday for failing to inform the community at the time he was sent to work there, saying that they had been used “as guinea pigs.”
“Had we known, we definitely would have done something,” said Wolfgang Reichenwallner, the mayor, and a friend of Father Hullermann. “We just can’t afford the risk that children in our community are put in harm’s way.”
“We got lucky that nothing seems to have happened.” According to Mr. Reichenwallner and church officials, there have been no new accusations of sexual abuse since Father Hullermann’s 1986 conviction.
[Just suppose that one of these aspiring Woodward-Bernstein teams have already found something more 'incriminating' or that could be made to look 'incriminating' for the Pope - and then they unleash the story right after the Vatican publishes the Pope's letter to the Irish Catholics on Saturday, can you imagine how TRULY CATASTROPHIC that would be???? - Even if it was trumped up, they will have planted the idea of a 'smoking gun' in the public mind! Everything would turn to travesty... Sure, i'm thinking worst-case scenario, but I wouldn't put anything past the MSM - they'lll think up even more extreme situations than the projections of someone like me who has always suffered from too little imagination.
MORE THAN EVER, THE HOLY FATHER AND THE CHURCH NEED OUR PRAYERS.... ]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 21/03/2010 18:27]