Pope's brother admits slapping choirboys

Updated on: 10 March,2010 11:24 AM IST |
Agencies |

The brother of Pope Benedict XVI has admitted that he slapped choirboys at the German choir school that he headed for 30 years, as the Vatican struggled to address burgeoning sex abuse scandals across Europe

Please forgive me: Ratzinger said he asked for forgiveness after punishing the boys. Pic/AFP

"First, I administered clips round the ear, but I always had a bad conscience about it. I was happy when in 1980 corporal punishment was banned," he said.

"At the same time, I ask the victims for forgiveness," added Ratzinger, who is four years older than his brother.
The choir that he ran inu00a0 Bavaria, has become the latest Catholic institution in Germany to be swept up in allegations of boys as young as eight being abused by priests. Ratzinger said he had no knowledge of the sex abuse which allegedly took place in the 1950s and 1960s. "The problem of sexual abuse was never discussed," he said.

A former pupil at the boarding school which was attached to the choir has claimed that there was an "ingenious system of sadistic punishments connected to sexual pleasure".

No gay priests

Vatican in the past has used psychologists to weed out homosexual priests.

Trainee priests suspected of being gay should be weeded out by psychologists and banned from joining the Catholic Church, the Vatican has said.

Homosexuality was a "deviation" that must be rooted out in would-be clergy early on in order to prevent "tragedies", the Vatican decreed in new guidelines on the issue.

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