BERLIN -- In the home country of Pope Benedict XVI, new revelations of child abuse by Roman Catholic priests at German high schools are surfacing almost daily.
The Catholic church in Germany -- where around 30 percent of people consider themselves Catholic -- has apologized for the incidents, but already there are calls for the government to take action because most of the cases date back to the 1970s and 1980s, beyond the reach of statutes and prosecution.
The first accusers came forward a month ago in Berlin. Since then, the list of schools and victims who say they were scarred and haunted by alleged abuses has grown.
First it was seven alumni of the prestigious Canisius Kolleg prep school in Berlin. Then it was Aloisius Kolleg in Bonn and then St. Blasien, another Jesuit-run boarding school in the Black Forest as well as other Catholic schools in Hamburg, Goettingen and Hildesheim.
Just days ago, the renowned boarding schools Ettal Monastery and St. Ottilien in Bavaria made headlines when allegations about child molestation by Benedictine priests there surfaced. The total number of alleged victims has reached at least 150.
Ursula Raue, an attorney appointed by the Jesuit religious order to handle the charges, told The Associated Press she has been overwhelmed by the number of cases that flood her inbox and answering machine daily.
"This whole case has taken on a dimension of unbelievable proportions," she said.
Raue said she "heard from mothers, sisters and brothers, whose children or siblings took their own lives or cannot function in daily life because of deep psychological scars."
Many victims have never talked to their wives or friends about the incidents because "they still feel ashamed when the memories of humiliation and powerlessness come back and when they realize that none of those old wounds have healed," Raue said.
Miguel Abrantes, now 37 and an actor in Duesseldorf, is one of the few victims able and willing to speak out about the abuse and humiliation he suffered as an 11-year-old boy at Aloisius Kolleg.
He said every morning, the boys had to undress and Father Ludger Stueper sprayed them with cold water from the hose, front and back. He said the boys also had to lie down on Stueper's couch where the priest would take their temperature -- rectally for seven minutes.
And then there were the photos.
"One time Stueper took pictures of a friend and me while we were in the shower. He also made us go outside and we had to pose naked for him, lean against stones and trees in the park, the foam from the shampoo still in our hair," Abrantes said.
While the focus of the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church centered on the United States for several years, abuse scandals have in recent years erupted in other countries as well, including Ireland, the Philippines, Poland, Mexico, Italy, Canada and elsewhere.
Neither the pope nor the Vatican has made any specific remarks about the abuse scandal in Germany, a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said, but he added that Benedict's previous statements on other such scandals -- including most recently about Ireland -- are certainly valid for Germany.
A Vatican statement last month, after a crisis meeting with Irish bishops, said Benedict called the sexual abuse of children "not only a heinous crime, but also a grave sin which offends God and wounds the dignity of the human person created in his image."
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