German Catholic schools at center of scandal

The Catholic Church in Germany, where about 30 percent of people consider themselves Catholic, has apologized for the incidents, but already there are calls for the government to take action because most of the cases date to the 1970s and 1980s, beyond the reach of statutes and prosecution.

The first accusers came forward a month ago in Berlin. Since then, the list of schools and victims who say they were scarred and haunted by alleged abuses has grown.

First it was seven alumni of the prestigious Canisius Kolleg prep school in Berlin. Then it was Aloisius Kolleg in Bonn and then St. Blasien, another Jesuit-run boarding school in the Black Forest, as well as other Catholic schools in Hamburg, Goettingen and Hildesheim.

Just days ago, the renowned boarding schools Ettal Monastery and St. Ottilien in Bavaria made headlines when allegations about child molestation by Benedictine priests there surfaced. The total number of alleged victims has reached at least 150.

Ursula Raue, an attorney appointed by the Jesuit religious order to handle the charges, said she has been overwhelmed by the number of cases that flood her inbox and answering machine daily.

“This whole case has taken on a dimension of unbelievable proportions,” she said.

Raue said she “heard from mothers, sisters and brothers, whose children or siblings took their own lives or cannot function in daily life because of deep psychological scars.”

The majority of the victims are male, because most of the schools involved admitted only boys aged 10 to 19 at the time the abuse took place. Many victims have never talked to their wives or friends about the incidents because “they still feel ashamed when the memories of humiliation and powerlessness come back and when they realize that none of those old wounds have healed,” Raue said.

Miguel Abrantes, now 37 and an actor in Duesseldorf, is one of the few victims able and willing to speak out about the abuse and humiliation he suffered as an 11-year-old at Aloisius Kolleg.