Photo Gallery 'Everything Must Come Out'
Back in 1980, Joseph Ratzinger -- pictured here in 1977 as the new archbishop of Munich -- played a role in the decision to handle a case of pedophiliac infractions committed by a priest internally.
Stephan Ackermann, the bishop of Trier who has been engaged by the Bishops' Conference to handle abuse cases, has openly criticized the institutions of the Catholic Church, admitting that "there have been cover-ups in a wide range of cases." Meanwhile, the archbishop of Bamberg, Ludwig Schick, says: "This boil must be lanced. Everything must come out."
On Saturday, the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI, published a pastoral letter in which he addressed the recently revealed slew of clerical sexual abuse cases in Ireland.
However, Benedict XVI's letter arrived controversy in Germany that, as the archbishop of Munich, Joseph Razinger played a role in the decision to handle the infractions of a pedophiliac priest internally. No police, no prosecutor, no trial. Therapy and brotherly love would bring this sinner back to the fold.
Pope Benedict XVI is pictured here attending a Vatican concert given by the Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir in 2005 with his brother Georg Ratzinger. Several choir boys have said that the pope's brother, now in his eighties and living in a monastery, administered severe and violent punishments to his charges. Georg Ratzinger has come clean about his transgressions and said that he stopped slapping choir members when Bavaria banned corporal punishment in 1980.
Italians protest against clerical sex abuse outside St. Peter's Square at the Vatican.
