GERMANY SHAKEN BY SYSTEMATIC SEX CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN BY CHRISTIAN CLERGY AT ELITE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL

Subject:	GERMANY SHAKEN BY SYSTEMATIC SEX CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN BY CHRISTIAN CLERGY AT ELITE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL
Date:	Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:59:26 GMT

Jesuit Priest Admits Molesting Youth

Germany Shaken By 'Systematic' Sexual Abuse at Berlin Catholic School

Molest cases at Berlin's Canisius College Jesuit high school, where
"systematic" sexual abuse took place for years. DPA

Der Spiegel
Monday, February 1, 2010

A priest last week admitted in a statement to SPIEGEL he had abused a
number of pupils at an elite Berlin high school run by Jesuit
priests. In recent days, around 20 former students have come forward
alleging they were sexually abused by priests at the school. The
director of Canisius College has described the years-long abuse as
"systematic."

Berlin's Canisius College, a university-prep high school run by
Jesuit priests, is one of the most elite schools in the German
capital. Former students from the respected private school have
reached the upper echelons of business, politics and society. For the
past week, however, Canisius College has been at the center of a
major sexual abuse scandall.

Last week, around 20 former students claimed they had been sexually
abused by two teachers at the school, Wolfgang S. and Peter R. The
abuse is believed to have been committed during the 1970s and 1980s.

'Nothing To Apologize For'

After being contacted by SPIEGEL, one of the former teachers admitted
he had abused some of his students. Wolfgang S., a former sports
teacher and Jesuit priest, issued a statement to his victims stating
it was "a sad fact that I abused children and young men under pseudo-
educational pretexts." The churchman, who today lives in South
America, said that he had informed regional Catholic authorities in
Germany in 1991 of his "criminal past." He claims the Jesuit priests
had known for 19 years about the multiple incidents of abuse.

Stefan Dartmann, the Catholic Provincial Superior for Germany,
confirmed to SPIEGEL that the order has knowledge of the crimes that
had been committed by Wolfgang S. at the time. Dartmann said a lawyer
had been hired to investigate the files "to determine what, exactly,
the Jesuits knew at the time and what consequences they drew."
Wolfgang S. left the order in 1992. Previously, he is also believed
to have abused pupils at other schools, but he refused to comment on
those allegations.

In addition to his time at the Berlin school, he worked at the Sankt-
Ansgar School in Hamburg and at the Sankt-Blasien school in the
southern Black Forest region from 1982 to 1984.

'Intimate, Fatherly Behavior'

The then-director of the school, Father Hans Joachim Martin, said
that S.'s "intimate, fatherly behavior" towards some schoolchildren
had attracted his attention. S. was later forced to leave the high
school.

S. also claimed he had told the Vatican about his misconduct. In his
statement, he says that he had provided testimony to the Vatican with
"unvarnished honesty." And in South America, he had "again and again
come into close contact with the torturers and victims" of the
Pinochet dictatorship. "I was confronted with my mirror image as a
tormenter of children," he said.

Several victims expressed their outrage over the tone of his
statement. In the document, dated Jan. 20, S. addressed "all the
people who I abused as children and in their youth." He added, "I'm
sorry for what I did to you. And if you are capable, I ask you to
forgive me." But he also told SPIEGEL: "I have come clean about my
past to God and the world."

The second man alleged to have abused children at the school is a 69-
year-old former religion teacher from Berlin, Peter R., who has
disputed all allegations. SPIEGEL could not reach R. for comment by
press time on Friday or on subsequent attempts on Monday. After his
time at the school in Berlin, R. apparently worked as a pastor with
young people in the state of Lower Saxony. He was reportedly the
victim of a knife attack by a former Canisius College student several
years ago.

Victim: Priest Ordered Me to Masturbate in Front of Him

After SPIEGEL hit the newsstands on Monday, additional details
emerged in the alleged abuses.

One former victim who has accused Peter R. told SPIEGEL that he had
had "several extensive talks" in 1981 with the school's rector at the
time, in which he spoke exhaustively about his sexual abuse. He said
the abuse had taken place in a basement on the school grounds. He
said the priest had repeatedly ordered him to masturbate in front of
him. "Anyone who wanted to get any further in school," the witness
said, was forced to go through similar degradation.

Karl Heinz Fischer, the school's rector from April 1981 to June 1989,
confirmed to SPIEGEL that a student had reported Peter R.'s abuse to
him during the first half of 1981. Fischer said he had immediately
notified his superior, priest Rolf Dieter Pfahl, who was the
Provincial Superior for the Jesuit Province of Northern Germany, of
the allegations. Pfahl then called for Peter R. to be transferred.
After the summer holidays in 1981, Fischer told SPIEGEL, Peter R. was
no longer deployed in the classroom.

'If I Had Known 30 Years Ago, I Would Have Acted Immediately'

Previously, Pfahl himself had been rector at the Canisius school
until he had been promoted to become the provincial in 1977. On
Friday, he told the Berliner Morgenpost he knew nothing of the abuse.
"I am shocked," he told the newspaper. "If I had known about this 30
years ago, I would have acted immediately."

Fischer said that no legal action was taken against R. at the time.
Instead, disciplinary measures were left to the church. "There was a
wall of silence back then," he admitted to SPIEGEL.

The abuse victim reported that religious teacher Peter R. had been
allowed to take part in a youth trip with students from the Canisius
school in the summer of 1981 despite the allegations against him.

On Monday, German Jesuit head Dartmann asked for the forgiveness in
the sexual abuse cases at the school from the victims, teachers and
children.

"I ask for forgiveness that senior members of the order neglected
their requirement to take a closer look, and that they did not take
appropriate action," Dartmann said Monday in a statement. He also
thanked the victims for speaking out, despite their troubling
memories.

News of the sexual abuse first became public last week after a
newspaper reported that the school's current rector, Klaus Mertes,
had sent a letter to 600 former students explaining that at least two
former priests at the school had committed crimes and that they were
not isolated cases. The Berliner Morgenpost reported the contents of
the letter in which Mertes wrote that he had been deeply shaken and
was ashamed to have learned that "systematic abuse had taken place at
the school over the years."

Reported by Sven Röbel and Peter Wensierski

More at:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,675331,00.html

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti

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