Church: Study reveals allegations of violence in Pope's boarding school

Threats, humiliation, slaps, headbutts - and being forced to eat your own vomit: A study has brought to light incidents of violence in the St. Michael Catholic study seminar in Traunstein. Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, was once a student there.

The study covers the period between 1960 and 1990. According to project leader and author Judith Dubiski from the leading Institute for Social Work and Social Education, various forms of violence against underage students occurred during these years.

According to the information, psychological and physical violence was reported most frequently, which was not in line with the Christian standards of the facility.

The scientists see a “lack of preparation and support of the staff” and excessive demands, which were often the cause of the violence. There are also indications of spiritual abuse and abuse of power - and also of some cases of sexual abuse by adults against minors as well as sexual violence between seminarians of the same age. However, no case has been reported "where a seminarian had to experience sexual abuse over a longer period of time," said Dubiski.

“Unlike psychological and physical violence, sexual violence was not used as a sanction, but was disguised as a “benefit,” say the authors of the study, which was initiated by affected former students and financed by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. The current school management also expressly supports the reappraisal.

The boarding school in Upper Bavaria, founded in 1929, has its reputation as a Catholic training ground primarily because Joseph Ratzinger, the future German Pope Benedict XVI, was once a seminarian there. In the 1930s and 1940s - before the period examined in the study - he attended high school there and remained very connected to the house later on.

In 2020, allegations of mistreatment by a former resident became public for the first time, after which other alleged victims came forward. The scientists researched for 18 months, viewed files and conducted interviews with those affected. The scientists see no evidence of systematic and structural abuse in the case of St. Michael, as has been shown in similar studies.