German schools mired in priest abuse scandal

BERLIN — In the home country of Pope Benedict XVI, new revelations of child abuse by Roman Catholic priests at German high schools are surfacing almost daily.

The Catholic Church in Germany — where around 30 percent of people consider themselves Catholic — has apologized for the incidents, but already there are calls for the government to take action because most of the cases date back to the 1970s and 1980s, beyond the reach of statutes and prosecution.

The first accusers came forward a month ago in Berlin. Since then, the list of schools and victims who say they were scarred and haunted by alleged abuses has grown.

First it was seven alumni of the prestigious Canisius-Kolleg prep school in Berlin. Then it was Aloisiuskolleg in Bonn and then St. Blasien, another Jesuit-run boarding school in the Black Forest as well as other Catholic schools in Hamburg, Goettingen and Hildesheim.

Just days ago, the renowned boarding schools Ettal Monastery and St. Ottilien in Bavaria made headlines when allegations about child molestation by Benedictine priests there surfaced. The total number of alleged victims has reached at least 150.

Ursula Raue, an attorney appointed by the Jesuit religious order to handle the charges, told The Associated Press she has been overwhelmed by the number of cases that flood her inbox and answering machine daily.

"This whole case has taken on a dimension of unbelievable proportions," she said.

Raue said she "heard from mothers, sisters and brothers, whose children or siblings took their own lives or cannot function in daily life because of deep psychological scars."

The majority of the victims are male, because most of the schools involved admitted only boys aged 10 to 19 at the time the abuse took place. Many victims have never talked to their wives or friends about the incidents because "they still feel ashamed when the memories of humiliation and powerlessness come back and when they realize that none of those old wounds have healed," Raue said.

While the focus of the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church centered on the United States for several years, abuse scandals have in recent years erupted in other countries as well, including Ireland, the Philippines, Poland, Mexico, Italy, Canada and elsewhere.

Neither the pope nor the Vatican has made any specific remarks about the abuse scandal in Germany, a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said, but he added that Benedict's previous statements on other such scandals — including most recently about Ireland — are certainly valid for Germany.