'Tsunami' of Abuse Cases Hits Pope's Old Archdiocese

(March 19) -- Pope Benedict XVI today signed a long-awaited pastoral letter about "healing and repentance" for clerical sex abuse in Ireland just as a similar scandal grew even more explosive in the pontiff's homeland.

More than 300 people have made claims of being sexually abused by priests in Germany this year. More than 100 have come from the pope's former archdiocese in Munich, the majority in the last three weeks and involving the Ettal monastery boarding school run by Benedictine monks.

"It's like a tsunami," Elke Huemmeler, head of the newly formed abuse-prevention task force in the archdiocese, told The Associated Press.

Huemmeler, who runs the archdiocese's social work unit, said church leaders were horrified at the number of new reports. As a result, Archbishop Reinhard Marx gave orders to form the task force.

"I don't think I've ever seen us that shocked," Huemmeler told the AP.

Last week, the scandal touched the pope directly when it was learned that as Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger in 1980, he had approved new housing and a stint in therapy for a priest accused of child sexual abuse.

The priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, was sent back to active parish work that involved children shortly thereafter, though the archdiocese said Ratzinger was not made aware of it.

Hullermann went on to abuse more children, was arrested and convicted on charges in 1986, but eventually was released and continued pastoral work. He was not suspended until his case was made public recently.

A German psychiatrist told The New York Times that he warned senior archdiocese officials repeatedly about Hullermann in both written and oral communication, but the priest was allowed to continue to interact with children.

"I said, 'For God's sake, he desperately has to be kept away from working with children,' " Dr. Werner Huth told the Times. "I was very unhappy about the whole story."

Huth said he never spoke to Ratzinger and doesn't know if the then-archbishop knew everything about the Hullermann case.

Another psychiatrist, Dr. Johannes Kemper, was commissioned by the court to examine Hullermann and provide an expert opinion for his 1986 trial.

"Alcohol played a big role," Kemper told the Times, adding that prior to actual sexual abuse, Hullermann "drank and then under the influence of alcohol he watched porn videos with youths."

Just when it seemed it couldn't get much worse for the Vatican, a new Catholic priest sex scandal erupted in Brazil, home of the world's largest Catholic population, earlier this week.

Brazilian officials are investigating three priests suspected of sexually abusing altar boys after a video allegedly showing an 82-year-old priest having sex with a 19-year-old altar boy was broadcast on television.

Other young men appeared on the SBT network report saying that they, too, had been abused. The three priests have reportedly been suspended and the Vatican said it was aware of the case.

The Brazil scandal is the first to hit Latin America after the recent wave of European clerical abuse cases.