Pope's brother caught up in abuse claims

A series of allegations in Germany and the Netherlands have plunged the Catholic Church into a renewed crisis over how it has dealt with child abuse after it emerged the Pope's brother ran a choir at the centre of some of the latest claims.

Reports of systematic historical abuse by clergy have surfaced at three schools in the Regensburg diocese in Bavaria. One is the renowned Regensburger Domspatzen, a thousand-year-old male choir and boarding school, whose choral master for 30 years was the Pope's older brother, Georg Ratzinger.

Monsignor Ratzinger has agreed to testify in any eventual prosecutions - but says he knew of no abuse. And yesterday the German Justice Minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, joined a growing chorus of politicians in Berlin to criticise the church over its attitude to the investigation, accusing Catholic institutions of a policy of secrecy.

"In many schools there was a wall of silence allowing for abuse and violence," said the minister, a prominent critic of the church.

She pointed to a 2001 Vatican directive which said even the most damaging claims should be investigated internally before authorities were told. A church spokesman called her criticisms "absurd".

A separate sex scandal has also enveloped the Catholic Church in the Netherlands after three people said they were abused at a boarding school run by priests in the 1960s.

Since the claims were published on Friday more than 200 people have spoken to a designated helpline saying they were also abused by monks and priests.

The new allegations are a source of major embarrassment to the Vatican, which had been hoping to draw a line under child abuse. Over the past decade the issue has enormously damaged the church's reputation and finances.

The German allegations first surfaced last month when investigators began looking into a series of Jesuit schools, but the scandal broadened out over the weekend into the heart of deeply Catholic Bavaria.

The Regensburg claims are particularly awkward because the Pope and his brother spent much of their careers in senior positions in the diocese, which will raise questions as to whether they ever heard of any clergy who sexually abused minors.

Throughout the 1970s Joseph Ratzinger taught theology at the University of Regensburg. Georg took over the Regensburger Domspatzen in 1964 and has since helped to turn the choir into one of the best in the world.

But he says he never heard of any abuse. Asked by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica whether he would talk to German officials, the 86-year-old Ratzinger replied:

"Obviously I'd be ready to do so, but I am not able to provide any information on any deed that could be punished, because ... I never knew anything about it."

Any abuse at the school, he said, occurred before he took over. He did admit pupils were subjected to a climate of "discipline and rigour" but said this was necessary to reach "a high musical, artistic level".

But Franz Wittenbrink, a German composer who lived at the school until 1967, said it was run by "a sophisticated system of sadistic punishments in connection with sexual lust".

He was also quoted by Der Spiegel as saying that it was "inexplicable" the Pope's brother knew nothing of what was happening.

- INDEPENDENT