Pope meets German Catholic leader over paedophilia

The German scandals are among several to have rocked the Catholic Church lately, notably in Ireland last year, and now Austria.

VATICAN CITY, March 12, 2010 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI met Friday with the head of the German Catholic Church as paedophile priest scandals swept Germany, one coming close to the pontiff's brother Georg Ratzinger, a former choirmaster.

The long-scheduled private meeting with Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg was to have been a traditional review of the recent spring gathering of Germany's bishops.

Instead the two Germans will focus on a tidal wave of scandals over predator priests and teachers which has now engulfed 19 of Germany's 27 dioceses.

The German scandals are among several to have rocked the Catholic Church lately, notably in Ireland last year, and now Austria and The Netherlands as well.

The Vatican is not expected to comment on the meeting, but Zollitsch was to hold a news conference in the late morning.

Germany's shock revelations began in late January when an elite Jesuit school in Berlin admitted systematic sexual abuse of pupils by two priests in the 1970s and 1980s.

Among other boarding schools implicated is one attached to the Domspatzen ("Cathedral Sparrows"), Regensburg cathedral's thousand-year-old choir which was run for 30 years by Georg Ratzinger.

On Tuesday Ratzinger, 86, said that the alleged sexual abuse in the 1950s and 1960s -- before his time -- was "never discussed".

Most of the priests concerned are not expected to face criminal charges because the alleged crimes took place too long ago, but there have been growing calls for a change in the law and for the Church to pay compensation.

The German government spoke out on the scandal, with Education Minister Annette Schavan saying there should be "zero tolerance" of the sexual abuse of children.

The Church has promised to shed light on all allegations, even those that are decades old.

The scandals encourage abuse victims to come forward, producing new allegations on an almost daily basis.

The Austrian daily Der Standard reported Friday that two German former members of the Vienna Boys Choir, a 33-year-old surgeon in Berlin and a 51-year-old psychologist in Munich, were the latest to allege abuse, the first by a teacher and the other by a choir director.

Benedict has spoken out several times since the start of his papacy in 2005 to condemn priestly paedophilia, and he has met with abuse victims in the United States and Australia.

In the United States the pope said those found guilty of paedophilia would be removed from the priesthood and the Church.

In February when he met with top officials of the Irish Catholic Church, the pope called child abuse a "heinous crime" and a "grave sin".

In 2001 when Benedict was head of the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog he ordered that paedophilia cases be reported to the Holy See, suspecting that many national hierarchies preferred to look the other way.

However earlier this week the pope's spokesman, Federico Lombardi, insisted that the German, Austrian and Dutch churches had acted swiftly and "decisively" to address the scandals and stressed that sexual abuse went far beyond church walls.

The proliferation of scandals in Europe has rekindled debate about the requirement of celibacy for Roman Catholic priests.

Archbishop of Vienna Christoph Schoenborn called for an unflinching examination of the possible roots of child sex abuse by priests, citing training, "the question of what happened in the so-called sexual revolution (and) the issue of priest celibacy and the issue of personality development."

The Vatican on Thursday reaffirmed the importance of priestly celibacy, calling it "a gift of the Holy Spirit."