The pope is refusing to comment publicly on individual sex abuse cases rocking the Catholic church because they were not his responsibility, his private secretary said today.
Monsignor Georg Gaenswein said it was not helpful for the pope to comment because it was for individual bishops to deal with them.
"It does not make sense, nor is it helpful, for the Holy Father to comment personally on each case," he told the German newspaper Bild. "It is overlooked too fast that various bishops and bishops conferences carry responsibility.
"Criticism that helps the cause is always legitimate," he was quoted as saying. "But I doubt that in this case the criticism really follows this purpose."
Msgr Gaenswein said each case of sexual abuse must be condemned, and "no one has done so as strongly as the Holy Father and the Catholic Church".
Over the past three months, hundreds of cases of sexual and physical abuse have shaken Germany's church, including some in the Munich archdiocese where the pope, then Joseph Ratzinger, served as archbishop from 1977-1982.
Cardinal Ratzinger in 1980 approved of a known paedophile priest's transfer from the northern city of Essen to Munich where he was to undergo therapy but was allowed to return to ministry and was later convicted of molesting children.
Also in the Munich diocese, children at the Benedictine Ettal Monastery boarding school were physically and sexually abused for years, according to a special report.
"My research has shown clearly that, over the decades in the Ettal Monastery up until about 1990, children and youths were brutally abused, sadistically tortured and also sexually abused," special investigator Thomas Pfister said yesterday.
His report has not been officially released, but some information has trickled out. About 100 former students of the monastery school claim to be abused by about 15 monks.
In the official statement released by the monastery and the archdiocese, Mr Pfister stressed that the abuse happened decades ago and that "the Ettal Monastery today can not be compared with the Ettal Monastery then."
He said his report summing up research he began in late February is 10 pages long, with a 173-page addendum of victim statements. He said the material confirms preliminary results he handed over March 5th.
In February about 20 alumni of the school came forward with abuse allegations.
The report was handed to officials from the Benedictine order that runs the school and to the Munich archdiocese, which has no official jurisdiction over the order. Both have not commented yet on specifics.
AP