Word: churchful
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...famous Regensburg Cathedral choir - which was led by the Pope's brother Georg Ratzinger for 30 years - and there've been up to a hundred allegations of abuse at a boarding school run by Benedictine monks in Ettal, Bavaria, which was raided by state prosecutors. Germany's Catholic Church has pulled out all the stops to convince parishioners that it's doing everything to prevent such abuse cases from happening again. It is setting up a nationwide hotline for victims of abuse on March 30 and has pledged to step up preventive measures and work closely with state prosecutors...
...shouldn't be allowed to work with children, he should give up alcohol, (because he allegedly committed the acts of abuse when he was drunk), and that he needed a mentor, someone who could supervise him at all times. The doctor said he made these requirements clear to church officials during a number of conversations, including an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese of Munich and Freising. "Father H. never fulfilled these conditions," says Huth who treated him in group therapy sessions from 1980 to 1992. Amid the group therapy, Father H. was convicted of sexually abusing minors in 1986. Afer...
Then in 2008, Dr. Huth says he received a call from a church official who told him that Father H. was still working with children. Indeed, for more than 20 years, the priest worked as a curate and parish administrator in the picturesque Bavarian town of Garching an der Alz, where he had regular contact with children and had supervised 150 altar-boys. The official had stumbled across old files which raised alarm bells. "I was horrified as there was no way this man should have been near children," Dr. Huth, now 80, told TIME from his house in Munich...
Then, on March 12, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung revealed the priest's history of sexual abuse. Three days later, Father H. was suspended from all pastoral duties. The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising admitted that he'd breached a church order banning him from working with children or youths and said in a statement that "serious mistakes" were made in the 1980s. And there was one resignation. Father H's superior, prelate Josef Obermaier, stepped down after the archdiocese said he assumed responsibility for "grave errors...
...German media about the Pope's role in the Father H affair, Dr. Huth says he thinks that Archbishop Ratzinger did not know about the case, simply because it seems unlikely that he'd be aware of everything that happened in his diocese. But the psychiatrist criticised church officials for turning a blind eye to the priest's history of abuse by not launching a thorough investigation. "Senior figures in the Catholic Church covered up the allegations of abuse in order to protect Father H and the church's image," Dr. Huth says. "The Church has an idealised, 'unworldly' attitude...