Popes brother admits slapping choirboys

By Nick Squires in Rome 349PM GMT 09 March 2010

Georg Ratzinger, 86, who ran the church band from 1964 to 1994, pronounced he right away regretted utilizing physical low mark opposite his charges and asked their forgiveness.

"At the commencement I administered clips turn the ear, but I regularly had a bad demur about it. I was happy when in 1980 physical low mark was criminialized by law," he said.

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People had "become some-more sensitive" about physically reprimanding children, a shift that he welcomed.

"At the same time, I ask the victims for forgiveness," Ratzinger, who is 4 years comparison than his brother, told a Bavarian every day newspaper, Passauer Neue Presse.

The church band that he ran, the Domspatzen in Regensburg, Bavaria, has turn the ultimate Catholic establishment in Germany to be swept up in allegations of boys as immature as eight being abused by priests.

Ratzinger pronounced he had no believe of the sex abuse that allegedly took place in the 1950s and 1960s. "The complaint of passionate abuse that has right away come to light was never discussed," he said.

A former student at the boarding propagandize that was trustworthy to the church band has claimed that there was an "ingenious complement of sadistic punishments continuous to passionate pleasure."

Franz Wittenbrink, right away a successful executive and composer, pronounced one headmaster in the 50s would take dual or 3 boys to his flat, give them red booze and rivet them in a passionate act.

"Everyone knew about it," Wittenbrink told Spiegel magazine. "I find it irregular that Georg Ratzinger, who had been cathedral bandmaster given 1964, assumingly knew zero about it."

In further to the flourishing liaison in Germany, Catholic priests have not long ago been indicted of abusing young kids in their caring in the Netherlands and Austria.