Zollitsch admits shortcomings
in dealing with a 1992 case
against a parish priest with
a 20-year-record of sex offenses
Translated from
July 9, 2010
Mons. Robert Zollitsch, Bishop of Freiburg (Germany) and president of the German bishops' conference, has now admitted he committed errors in handling a sex abuse case in the past and asks the victims for their forgiveness.
He said that he had learned much earlier about sexual abuses committed by the parish priest of Oberharmsbach in Baden than he had earlier admitted - that he had been informed about the case in 1992, when, he said, he should have paid more attention to it by seeking out all possible victims as well as talking to witnesses.
Zollitsch made the admission and plea for forgiveness after speaking with victims of the parish priest, who was accused at the time of having sexually abused altar servers and other young boys over a 20-year period. He was made to retire in 1991, but authorities were never informed of his offenses.
At the same time, Zollitsch apologized for a statement made by his Archdiocesan spokesman in March and repeated in June that he learned of the priest's offenses only in 1995, after the priest was retired, even as he denied that he had ever covered up for the priest.
Zollitsch's archdiocese published an interim report Friday about reported cases of sexual abuse by priests, saying that in the first half of 2010, it had received complaints against 44 priests, religious and Church workers for sexual abuses committed between 1950 and 2000.
[44 offenders is 44 too many, but the complaints cover a 50-year period.]
Of the 44, 36 were diocesan priests, of whom 16 have died and 12 are retired. Four priests have been dismissed from pastoral work, two complaints are still being investigated, and in two cases, the identity of the accused priest has not been established. Four of the complaints were against two priests and two instructors belonging to religious orders. Ten complaints were sent over to the civil authorities.
In each case, the archdiocese says it has sought to make contact with all possible victims to offer them assistance and counsel.
I hope the episode of his 'forgetfulness' has made Mons. Zollitsch realize how wrong it was for him and Mons. Marx of Munich to have been so high-handed with Mons. Mixa last April and pressuring him in public to resign before even talking to him.
In Belgium, a report from the online service of RTBF (Radio-Television Belge Francophone):
Cardinal Danneels protests
violation of secrecy
in current investigations
Translated from
July 9, 2010
The retired Primate of Belgium, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, has filed a civil complaint against a Belgian magistrate for violating the secrecy of current investigations into complaints made against bishops and priests for alleged sexual abuse.
Danneels underwent ten hours of questioning earlier this week by authorities conducting the inquiry, Before his testimony, there were several leaks to the media about the alleged prurient content of a PC seized last week from the cardinal's residence.
It turns out that the so-called prurient files included information about the case of Belgian man convicted for raping and killing girls in the 1990s as part of a European pedophile network that reportedly involved high-ranking politicians. The information was contained in a CD sent to journalists and selected personages by a British outlet seeking reactions to the case.
The picture of a nude girl also found on the computer was apparently an art drawing executed by a student in Liege automaticallly downloaded to the PC during a visit to the site of RTBF itself.
Official Belgian sources said that the improper leaks about the Church investigation are being looked into.
I am prejudiced against Cardinal Danneels, but he has cooperated in the current investigation and has said he is happy to do so, and he is right to protest the flagrant violation of secrecy by the Belgian investigators while the inquiry is still ongoing.
Another most interesting report from DIE WELT has to do with the top two school officials at the Benedictine Abbey in Ettal, Mavaria, whom Munich Archbishop Reinhard Marx forced to resign last April after the disclosure of various sex abuses committed by priests decades ago - long before the two officials were in charge! ....
A new Vatican rebuke
for Munich's archbishop
Translated from
July 9, 2010
The air has not been good these days for MUNich's Archbishop Reinhard Marx. Recently, Pope Benedict XVI had harsh words for the way the German bishops had treated their former colleague Mons. Walter Mixa.
"After a time of often disproportionate polemics," the Pontiff wrote, "The German bishops should now show, more than they have before, their friendly closeness, their understanding, and their help so that Mons. Mixa can find the right way".
The words were unusually clear, and Freiburg Archbishop Robert Zollitsch and Marx must have felt it directed to them, for having taken the lead in bringing down the former Augsburg bishop and publicizing a report accusing him of alcoholism and other psychiatric problems.
Now the Vatican has sent another message to the German Church which is another rebuke to the Archbishop of Munich. This time it's about how he handled the revelation of decades-old sex abuses at the Benedictine Abbey of Ettal.
After the revelations in February, Marx forced the Abbot and the School Rector of Ettal to resign on the ground that they had not done enough to resolve the scandal.
But an apostolic visitation of Ettal ordered by the Vatican has now come to a different conclusion: Both officials had acted correctly and did everything they were required to do, and they should now resume their functions.
Ettal was the next big institution after the Jesuit Canisius College in Berlin to be identified as a Catholic school where abuses - sexual, corporeal and psychological - were perpetrated between 1960-1990 by some of the religious on children enrolled in the abbey's boarding school.
The abbey has posted the letter from Cardinal Franc Rode, Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life (which oversees religious orders), informing the abbey of the Vatican decision.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 11/07/2010 06:03]