Wednesday, March 10, 2010
THE Pope’s brother admitted yesterday that he slapped pupils across the face after he took over a renowned German boys’ choir in the 1960s and was aware of allegations of physical abuse at an elementary school linked to the choir, but did nothing about it.
Rev Georg Ratzinger, 86, made the comments to a German paper following charges of sexual and physical abuse in Catholic schools in the pope’s native Bavaria.
In an interview with the Passauer Neue Presse yesterday, he said he "repeatedly administered a slap in the face" to pupils at the Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir. He says it was common then and he stopped after Germany banned corporal punishment in 1980.
Ratzinger said he knew of allegations of physical abuse at another school but did "not have the feeling that I should do something about it."
Ratzinger insists he knows nothing of sexual abuse allegations at the Domspatzen.
"Pupils told me on concert trips about what went on. But it didn’t dawn on me from their stories that I should do something. I was not aware of the extent of these brutal methods," Ratzinger said.
"If I had known about the excess of force he was using, I would have said something ... I ask the victims for forgiveness," said Ratzinger who led the Regensburger Domspatzen, or Regensburg Cathedral Sparrows, the official choir for the Regensburg diocese, from 1964 to 1994.
"At the start, I also slapped people in the face but I always had a bad conscience," said Ratzinger.
The Regensburg diocese is home to one of three Catholic schools in the southern state of Bavaria where the charges of sexual and physical abuse have surfaced recently.
The diocese has said one priest abused two boys sexually in 1958 and was sentenced to two years in jail. Another clergyman served 11 months in jail in 1971 for abuse. Other former pupils have said they suffered sexual abuse and excessive beatings in the early 1960s by unnamed teachers.
German Pope Benedict, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, taught theology at Regensburg University from 1969 to 1977.
Reports last month said Catholic priests had sexually abused more than 100 children at Jesuit schools around Germany. Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops Conference, has issued a public apology and is due to travel to the Vatican on Friday to discuss the scandal.
Ratzinger acknowledged he physically punished students but said he never beat them to an abusive extent, and that he and his Regensburg colleagues never talked about sexual abuse.
Meanwhile, the Vatican’s spokesman said sexual abuse scandals are cause for anguish but the Roman Catholic Church’s response has been prompt and transparent.
The Rev Federico Lombardi said any abuse in the Church is "especially deplorable" given its educational and moral responsibilities. But he added the problem of child abuse is wider than cases that have surfaced within the Church and that focusing on the church alone would not truly depict the problem.
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