(法新社)2010年3月21日 星期日 02:50
（法新社海牙 20日電） 荷蘭 天主教會發言人寇南（Pieter Kohnen）今天說，本月已至少有1100起該教會教士遭人指控性侵的案件出現，其時間介於1950年開始的30年間。
寇南說：「根據最新數字，已有1100起告發案件。」
他並說，這些舉報的案件都已由1個委員會負責記錄。該委員會是在1995年由教會設立，以協助遭教士性侵的受害者。
荷蘭宗教領導人3月9日下令針對天主教神父涉嫌性侵兒童案，進行「廣泛、對外和獨立」的調查行動，並向受害者道歉。（譯者：中央社張佑之）
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/article/100320/8/h3ul.html
教宗就愛爾蘭教會虐童道歉
更新時間 2010年 3月 20日, 格林尼治標準時間19:09
這是教宗首次公開致函就虐童事件道歉梵蒂岡教宗本篤十六世向幾十年來受愛爾蘭神父虐待和性侵犯的受害者做出道歉。
這些案件嚴重損害了天主教會在愛爾蘭的名聲。
本篤十六世首次就虐童醜聞專門致函愛爾蘭天主教徒道歉，稱自己對此感到羞愧和悔恨。
教宗在信中說：「你們的信任被出賣，你們的尊嚴遭到侵犯」。
教宗批評愛爾蘭教會的領導人未能回應有關虐待的指責是犯下了嚴重的錯誤。
教宗還批評了遴選主教程序的不適當。
「失望」
愛爾蘭的一個受害者團體對教宗的書面道歉表示失望。
這個團體認為公開信沒有承認梵蒂岡有系統地掩蓋虐童案件，也沒有呼籲愛爾蘭現在的天主教會紅衣主教辭職。
儘管如此，也有人認為，教宗的道歉是前所未有的，也是鼓舞人心的。
德國天主教教團主席佐利其表示，本篤十六世的信也是對德國教會的警告。
包括德國、瑞士、荷蘭、奧地利以及美國的天主教會都有類似的醜聞發生。
雖然有報道稱，愛爾蘭紅衣大主教布雷迪曾經在1970年代有意掩蓋虐童案件，並迫使受害者簽署保密書，但是他拒絕因為虐童事件辭職。
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/trad/world/2010/03/100320_pope_sexabuse_apology.shtml
教皇本篤十六世在天主教教會的全能戰鬥
Pope Benedict XVI's almighty battle in the Catholic Church
A malicious storm is being stirred up over the Pope's alleged failure to deal with abusive priests, says Damian Thompson.
一個懷惡意的風暴正被攪起，針對聲稱的教宗未能處理虐待神父的指控，達米安湯普森說。
Damian Thompson
Published: 7:08AM GMT 19 Mar 2010
Ratzinger was never part of the 'magic circle' of bishops who covered up for each other Photo: AFP拉青格從來不是主教的'魔術圈'的一部分，他們互相包庇 圖片：法新社
After a week of disastrous publicity for the Roman Catholic Church, it's a fair bet that if you conducted a word-association test in the average British high street, the results would be as follows:
經過一個星期給羅馬天主教會的災難性宣傳，它是一個公平的賭博，如果你在一般的英國高街進行一次詞語聯想測驗，結果將會如下：
Catholic priest? "Paedophile."
天主教神父？ “戀童癖患者。”
Pope? "Nazi."
教皇？ “納粹”。
The reputation of the Church internationally has never been lower. On Wednesday, St Patrick's Day, Cardinal Sean Brady, Primate of All Ireland, apologised for helping to persuade two boys – aged 10 and 14 – to sign letters agreeing not to tell the police that a priest, Brendan Smyth, had abused them.
教會的聲譽在國際上從未更低。在週三的聖帕特里克節，全愛爾蘭的最高階主教肖恩布雷迪樞機主教，道歉為幫助說服兩個孩子 - 10和14歲 - 簽署信件同意不告訴警察，一名神父布倫丹史密斯曾虐待過她們。
This was 35 years ago: Brady was just one priest involved in the internal church process, and the story has been in the public domain for years. But what difference does that make? Smyth, now dead, went on to be exposed as a notorious sexual predator. Cardinal Brady said last December that he would resign if he was implicated in decisions that led children to be abused. Now he says he'll go only if the Holy Father orders him to.
這是35年前：布雷迪只是其中一位神父涉及教堂內部的過程，和故事已在公共領域流傳多年。但它有什麼不同之處？現在已死了的史密斯，繼續被暴露為一名臭名昭著的性掠奪者。樞機主教布雷迪去年12月表示，他將辭職如果他被牽連在導致兒童被虐待的決策上。現在他卻說，他將離去只在如果教宗命令他。
Pope Benedict XVI will have to make up his mind what to do about Cardinal Brady. But it won't be easy to find the time, because clerical child-abuse scandals – previously mainly confined to the English-speaking world – are bursting out all over Europe. And sections of the media are doing their best to implicate the Pope in one of them.
教皇本篤十六世將要下決定，怎麼處辦布雷迪樞機主教。但它並不容易找到時間，因為文職兒童 - 虐待醜聞 - 以前只局限於英語 - 說話的世界 - 在整個歐洲上爆炸。某些媒體正在盡力將教宗牽連在他們其中的一個。
Did Joseph Ratzinger, when he was Archbishop of Munich in 1980, enable a priest already facing allegations to work in a parish and subsequently abuse boys? A headline in The Times on Saturday left readers in no doubt: "Pope knew priest was paedophile but allowed him to continue with ministry."
當約瑟夫拉青格在1980年時仍是慕尼黑大主教，有否使已經面臨指控在教區工作並隨後虐待男孩的成為神父？上週六泰晤士報的標題使讀者毫無疑問：“教皇知道神父是戀童癖，但允許他繼續神父職務。”
The story was explosive, and not just because it directly implicated the spiritual leader of a billion Catholics. The Pope is visiting England and Scotland in September. He will meet the Queen at Holyrood House, Edinburgh, and beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, the great English theologian, at a public Mass in Coventry. And he will offer "guidance on the great moral issues of our day", according to Cardinal Keith O'Brien, leader of the Church in Scotland.
這個故事是爆炸性的，不只是因為它直接牽連10億天主教徒的精神領袖 。教宗會在9月訪問英格蘭和蘇格蘭，他將會在愛丁堡的聖十字樓見英國女王，和在高云地利的一次公開彌撒，為偉大的英國神學家紅衣主教紐曼行宣福禮。和他將提供“我們時代大道德議題的指引”，根據蘇格蘭教會領袖思奧布賴恩樞基。
Moral guidance? From a man who (according to The Times) knew a priest was a paedophile but allowed him to continue in ministry? If that were true, no wonder 28,000 people have signed a petition to the Prime Minister objecting to state funding of Benedict's visit.
At which point, everyone needs to take a deep breath. Because a narrative is being formed in the public imagination that is horrifying, packed with salacious detail and very neat, in that it describes a Catholic conspiracy to hush up child abuse stretching right to the very top. The problem is that it's partly fiction.
Many Catholics – and I am one of them – believe that the Pope has been stitched up over this Munich case. The then-Archbishop Ratzinger did not allow a priest he knew to be a paedophile to continue in ministry. He gave permission for the priest – a revolting pervert called Peter Hullermann, who was accused (but not convicted) of forcing an 11-year-old boy to perform a sex act on him – to receive counselling in Munich while suspended from priestly duties.
Without Archbishop Ratzinger's knowledge, Hullermann was later transferred to parish duties. By the time he was convicted of sex offences, the archbishop had become Cardinal Ratzinger and had been working in the Vatican for several years. So the Times headline was, in the words of the leading Catholic commentator Philip Lawler, "grossly misleading, downright irresponsible".
The future Pontiff could have been more vigilant, but to bracket his delegation of decisions with Cardinal Brady's complicity in a cover-up is unfair. As unfair, indeed, as branding an elderly Bavarian cleric a "former Nazi" because he was drafted into the Hitler youth and served briefly in the German army during the war.
The fact is that sections of the media will not be happy until they have implicated the Pope in sex-abuse scandals – and if the dots don't quite join up, never mind: it makes good copy and the Successor of Peter isn't going to sue, is he? One Guardian columnist welcomed the news of the Pope's visit with the claim that he had "colluded" in the deaths of millions of Africans. "Don't tread on the corpses," she sneered.
Mgr Georg Ratzinger, the Pope's ancient older brother, has also been dragged into the spotlight. As head of the Regensburg choir school, he was innocent of any abuse that took place there before his time. But he admitted slapping the occasional wayward choirboy, so naturally he has been thrown to the wolves.
Yet there are also Catholics – and, again, I'm one of them – who are furious that a culture of secrecy has enabled a small minority of clergy to assault children: generations of children, in some cases, their crimes consistently hushed up by lazy slugs in diocesan offices who would rather expose young people to assault than damage "the good name of the Church".
As a journalist working in the Catholic media, I've encountered again and again a level of deceit reminiscent of the flunkeys of
a tinpot dictator. Charles Chaput, the current Archbishop of Denver, a lonely campaigner against episcopal back-slapping, has condemned the "clericalism, excessive secrecy, 'happy talk' and spin control" that enabled the establishment to move abusers around parishes like pieces on a Monopoly board.
Russell Shaw, the former director of communications for America's Catholic bishops, has written about the "stifling, deadening misuse of secrecy that does immense harm to the Church". But Shaw also raises the unfashionable topic of "legitimate secrecy of the kind required to protect confidential records and people's reputations".
Let me give an example. A priest I know slightly was accused of a sexual crime that he didn't commit. He was removed from his parish so quietly that his parishioners didn't know what was going on. He returned, months later, equally surreptitiously, having been cleared by police. Some of his flock resented the "secrecy". Yet it saved the career and reputation of an innocent man.
When he was the Vatican's chief doctrinal enforcer, Cardinal Ratzinger defended and enforced this legitimate secrecy. In 2001, he demanded to be sent bishops' files on accused clergy, because he did not believe the cases were being handled with sufficient rigour. He cited a 1962 document which stressed the need for confidentiality. But – and this point is crucial – Ratzinger used his new jurisdiction to act far more harshly against sex abusers than had their useless local bishops. From that point forward, writes John Allen, an American Catholic journalist, "he and his staff seemed driven by a convert's zeal to clean up the mess".
What are non-Catholics to make of all this? I'd argue that, like Catholics, they need to resist sweeping conclusions and try to reconcile two truths. The first is that many Catholic bishops, especially in Ireland and America, betrayed children, families and their own good priests by covering up for abusers. The crimes may have reached their peak as long ago as the 1970s, but the culture that enveloped them has yet to be fully dismantled.
The second is that secularists who despise Catholicism are manipulating tragedies to marginalise Catholics and blacken the name of a Pope, Benedict XVI, who has done far more than his predecessor to root out what he calls the "filth" of sexual abuse. Unfortunately for the Pope, his enemies inside the Church, who include members of the College of Cardinals, are happy for him to take the rap. Ratzinger was never "one of the boys", the "magic circle" of bishops who covered for each other, and now he is paying for it. Expect some judicious leaking of scandals to sympathetic journalists just in time for his visit.
Ultimately, only the Pope himself can resolve the tension between guilt and innocence, and he needs to act fast. The "Rottweiler" nickname was always misleading, given his personal gentleness, but it would be no bad thing if he launched a ferocious attack on sexual predators and their hand-wringing accomplices in the higher ranks of the clergy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7477823/Pope-Benedict-XVIs-almighty-battle-in-the-Catholic-Church.html
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