Horrific Abuse Alleged at Monastery in Pope's Old Turf

More bad news for the Catholic Church from Pope Benedict's native Germany, where monks and lay teachers stand accused of abusing students for decades at an elite Catholic boarding school near Munich. Allegations from more than 100 students that monks "brutally mistreated, sadistically tormented and, not least, sexually abused" them are probably only the "tip of the iceberg," according to a report released yesterday.

Most of the abuse occurred before 1990, including during the period when Benedict—then Archbishop Ratzinger—presided over the Munich archdiocese, the Wall Street Journal reports. But at least one of the monks continued to work with children, and allegedly abuse them, until as late as 2009. In an interview published yesterday, the pope's private secretary defended his silence on the scandal in Germany: It does "not makes sense, nor is it helpful, for the Holy Father to comment personally on each case," he said.
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