BERLIN, (Reuters) – The growing scandal over sexual abuse by Catholic priests threatened Germany’s top bishop who was put under investigation yesterday on suspicion of aiding and abetting a known abuser by letting him get a new parish job.
Robert Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops’ Conference, is being investigated in the southwestern city of Freiburg where he is archbishop on suspicion allowing a priest accused of child abuse in the 1960s to be reappointed to a parish job in 1987.
The church in Freiburg accused the state prosecutors and media of “sensationalism” by talking of charges of “aiding and abetting sexual abuse” against the 71-year-old archbishop and denied that the appointment was his direct responsibility.
A rash of accusations of sexual and physical abuse by priests across Europe, the United States and beyond has plunged the Vatican into probably its worst crisis in modern history.
Pope Benedict has been accused of turning a blind eye to an abuse case in 1980 in his native Germany and some U.S. victims’ lawyers want the pontiff himself to stand witness, in attempts to demonstrate negligence by the Vatican.
One German bishop, Walter Mixa of Augsburg, has already had to resign because of accusations against him and bishops and senior churchmen have also quit in Belgium and Ireland.
