German bishops pray for abuse victims

(March 18, 2010) Meanwhile, German bishops from the heavily Catholic state of Bavaria say they are «ashamed and shocked» at the extent of sexual abuse in the church in Germany and are calling for prayers for the victims. On Thursday Archbishop Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising was to meet the leaders of other dioceses in Bavaria where some 100 former students of church-run schools have claimed they were abused. In comments on Wednesday, Archbishop Marx called for a rebirth in the church in the wake of the abuse scandal that has rocked the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI. Meanwhile German chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday called the sex abuse scandal rocking the nation is a major challenge to German society and warned the only way to come to terms with it was to «find out everything that has happened.» Her comments came in the parliament amid growing impatience with the Catholic Church in Germany, where some 300 former Catholic students have come forward with claims of physical or sexual abuse. In her first public statement on the German scandal, Merkel stressed that it was important not to point fingers, but said that “all sexual abuse of minors is a despicable crime and the only way for our society to come to terms with it is to look for the truth and find out everything that has happened.”