Report outlines hundreds of sex abuse claims at Catholic schools in Germany

The New York Times

05/28/2010

Link

BERLIN – Deepening the sexual abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, a special investigator released a report Thursday saying that 205 former students alleged they had been abused in Jesuit schools.

The investigator, Ursula Raue, said the actual number could be higher.

"We cannot expect to have heard everything yet," she said. "The question must be asked why the order dealt so dismissively with the well-based information about frequent incidents of sexual abuse in its institutions."

The Rev. Stefan Dartmann, Germany's leading Jesuit official, issued a statement acknowledging "with shame and guilt, our failure."

"I ask for forgiveness," he said in the statement, adding that there was a "widespread mentality in the order, and perhaps still is, that the primary concern was the reputation of the institution and its fellow brothers."

The report is the latest blow to a church weathering its most serious crisis over sexual abuse, in Germany and around the world. Pope Benedict XVI, who has faced accusations that he or his subordinates did not take strong enough actions in several cases in Germany and elsewhere, has acknowledged the depth of the problem, saying this month that the crisis was "truly terrifying."

The Jesuit order in Germany had asked Raue to look into allegations of sexual abuse after 25 students came forward alleging abuse at Canisius-Kolleg in Berlin, one of the best Roman Catholic schools in the country.