(AFP) — Norway’s Roman Catholic Church received so many email tip-offs about possible pedophile priests following revelations of abuse by a bishop that its computer crashed, a senior cleric said.
“I received so many email tip-offs about possible aggressions and other sexual abuse that the computer server crashed,” Bishop of Oslo and Trondheim Bernt Eidsvig was quoted as saying by the tabloid paper Verdens Gang.
Bernt disclosed on Wednesday at the request of the Vatican that one of Norway’s former bishops, German Georg Mueller, had abused a choirboy in the early 1990s.
The newspaper said that its own research had in recent days uncovered nine sex abuse cases in the church.
“The church must now investigate whether these are new cases,” the newspaper added.
Further details are expected to emerge at a church press conference in Oslo, later on Friday.
Eidsvig said the church was aware of three cases in addition to Mueller and was ready to open its “secret” archives in which sensitive information on priests is held.
“I will make contact with prosecutors and tell them what I know and ask their advice. If they want an outside (the church) investigation, I am open to that,” he said.
He said that secret archives may be opened to the public once prosecutors had been consulted.
April 9, 2010
Source: AFP
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