Georg Ratzinger - Allegations of Sexual and Physical Abuse Under His Directorship

Allegations of Sexual and Physical Abuse Under His Directorship

A man who lived in the choir-linked boarding school until 1967 has contended that "a sophisticated system of sadistic punishments in connection with sexual lust" had been installed there. Der Spiegel quoted the man, a composer Franz Wittenbrink, as saying it would be inexplicable that the pope's brother didn't know anything about it. Ratzinger has admitted slapping pupils in the face. He commented: "At the start, I also slapped people in the face, but I always had a bad conscience". He claims to have been relieved when corporal punishment was forbidden in 1980. Ratzinger has denied any knowledge of sexual abuse. A Vatican spokesperson stated that the allegations are a campaign allegedly aimed against the pope and the Roman Catholic Church.

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