Good Friday reflection

The chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Archbishop of Freiburg Robert Zollitsch, released a statement on Good Friday acknowledging the failure of the Catholic Church to satisfactorily handle the sex abuse scandal.

Zollitsch admitted that, in the past, the church had done too little to help abuse victims, and said the church's response was a reflection of contemporary social mores.

"Today, it is clear to us: previously the social situation was different, and we allowed ourselves to be overcome - by disappointment over the painful failure of the perpetrators and mistaken concern over the reputation of the church," said Zollitsch in a written statement that his diocese released on Friday.

"Not enough help was given to the victims," he added as he spoke of "wounds that may never be healed."

Scandal shapes Good Friday

However, Good Friday could provide a new beginning for the church, said Zollitsch. Many Catholic dioceses are addressing the sex abuse scandal during Easter services, with a prayer for the victims written by the Bishop of Trier, Stephen Ackermann.

In his own Good Friday sermon, Ackermann addressed the psychological wounds of sexual abuse victims, referring to the healing of the wounds of Jesus.

Search for forgiveness across Europe

Earlier in the week, the Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schoenborn, expressed the church's guilt in the scandal, incurred during years of silence and cover-ups. Bishops across Austria and Switzerland appealed to parishioners to come forward with their allegations and Schoenborn thanked in particular the victims who had broken their silence.

"We confess our guilt to the many whom we have wronged as a church, and whom some of us have wronged very directly," said Schoenborn.

However, church critics in Austria have dismissed Schoenborn's apology as "insufficient." The activist platform, Betroffene kirchlicher Gewalt, or "victims of church violence," said it would not accept "mere apologies and prayers for humility."

In a separate display of solidarity with the victims of church abuse, the artist Emmerich Weissenberger crucified himself on the facade of Vienna's St. Stephan's Cathedral on Friday.

The artist was symbolically wearing a loin cloth and a crown of thorns - in this case barbed wire - while fastened to the church at a height of 20 meters.

Meanwhile, the head of the Catholic Church, German-born Pope Benedict XVI has so far avoided addressing the growing criticism of the widespread abuse scandal.

A Vatican spokesman had previously told the AP news agency that the pope viewed the crisis as a "test for both him and the Church."

glb/smh/Reuters/dpa/kna
Editor: Susan Houlton