German bishops affirm ban on paedophiles in parish work

Sep 28, 2007, 12:00 GMT

Fulda, Germany - The Catholic Church will work 'with all its might' to uncover paedophile attacks on children by priests, the head of the German Catholic Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, said Friday.

Speaking amid an outcry over a paedophile clergymen who was reassigned to a parish, Lehmann said the 70 bishops had discussed the issue for two and a half hours at talks this week but had not put it on their formal agenda.

A guideline adopted by the bishops in 2002 prohibits the employment of convicted paedophiles in parish work, effectively confining them to administrative tasks where they only have contact with adults.

Referring to the arrest of a previously convicted priest in the Bavarian parish of Riekofen on new child-sex charges, Lehmann said, 'Every case of sexual abuse is one case too many.'

'The church will do everything with all its might to uncover sexual abuse,' he said.

Though he did not criticize the priest's diocese, Lehmann said at the end of the talks in Fulda, central Germany, 'I'd accept that here and there things should have been done differently.'

Parents in the diocese of Regensburg voiced outrage last month that they were not warned about the disgraced priest's past.

Lehmann, who said such cases 'harm and lead to a loss of confidence in the whole church,' added that bishops hoped to achieve 'as much transparency as possible.'

The bishops adopted guidelines on the use of an ancient ritual, the Latin mass, as ordered by Pope Benedict XVI.

Lehmann said Catholics could request a Latin mass, but it must not replace the normal Sunday mass in German.