Catholic Church abuses German bloggers

The scandal in Germany involving Catholic priests sexually abusing children has now expanded well beyond Berlin to nearly every diocese and now has reached  even the brother of Pope Bendedict XVI:

The newly emerging scandals, especially those in Germany, cut particularly close to Benedict, who was archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982, before spending more than two decades in charge of the Vatican’s doctrinal arm, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is ultimately responsible for investigating abuse cases.The connection to Benedict’s brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, comes from accusations of physical and sexual abuse from former students at two Bavarian boarding schools connected to a choir he directed from 1964 to 1994, leading to questions about whether he could have known about the abuse. 

But rather than helping in the investigation of these crimes and bringing the pedophile priests to justice the diocese of Regensburg has taken legal action against local bloggers to prevent them from writing about the scandal:

Die katholische Kirche mahnte einen Blogger ab, der sich kritisch über den Kindesmissbrauch äußerte.
Nach Informationen der "Süddeutschen Zeitung" reagierte ein katholischer Pfarrer auf Missbrauchsvorwürfe gegen das Bistum Regensburg mit der Zusendung von kostenpflichtigen Abmahnungen samt Unterlassungserklärungen, durch welche er die Informantin und eine Vermittlerin zum Schweigen bringen wollte.
Weil angeblich eine, aus einem "Handelsblatt"-Artikel übernommene Behauptung nicht stimmt, erhielt der Blogger eine kostenpflichtige Abmahnung. Das "Handelsblatt" selbst blieb bislang verschont

(The Catholic Church issued a legal warning against a  blogger who wrote a critical piece concerning the local child abuse case.According to information from the "Sueddeutsche Zeitung"  a Catholic priest responded to on abuse charges against the diocese of Regensburg by sending of warning of legal consequences including cease and desist order with which he wanted to silence the informant and the informant)

It is quite clear the Catholic Church in Germany is in denial concerning the magnitude of the crisis. Last evening the talkshow Menschen bei Maischberger  featured victims of abuse as well as apologists for the church including the Bishop Laun of Salzburg.  Midway through the program (available here) the Catholic writer Gabriele Kuby blames the whole scandal on the German Green Party and the "loose morals" of the "Generation of 1968", and Bishop Laun asks why the media didn't "look more closely at the Protestant Church" "Warum schaut man eigentlich bei den Evangelischen nicht genau hin?"  This lashing out, blaming others, only underscores the fact that the church is in denial and is unlikely to recover in Germany. 

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[hattie]

Unglaublich, aber wahr.