Ratzinger, Morley Safer

Pope Bendedict XVI poses with a couple of sex deviants and their victims.

Years ago, Morley Safer did a story on 60 Minutes about the Boys Choir of Harlem. Safer reported approvingly of the physical abuse the asshole who ran the choir inflicted on the boys. He thought it was funny that a kid with big ears said that the scumbag would twist his ears.

You think Safer would have been chuckling over Jewish kids treated this way?

Now there's a report out on a German Catholic music school where over 500 choir boys were abused over the years. Pope Benedict XVI's less successful brother, Georg Ratzinger, was choir director. He says he stopped slapping children after the Mother Church banned corporal punishment.

According to the New York Times:

In the remaining cases, 547 in total, the reports of abuse were deemed plausible, based on interviews or other corroborating evidence. Of those cases, 67 are believed to have involved sexual abuse. The others involved various forms of corporal punishment, including ear-twisting and beatings with a cane.

Sadism is a common enough impulse. There's an overlap between physical and sexual abuse.

For some, Father Ratzinger embodied a musical perfectionist who sought success above all else, while others recalled him as being quick with a slap, and having no compunction against throwing a chair or music stand into the choir.

Many recalled him picking favorites, which meant the best singers had no problems with him, while others were beaten or slapped for singing a wrong note.

When Mr. Weber started his investigation, Father Ratzinger was critical, calling it “insanity” to try to investigate how many slaps had been “doled out” in the institution associated with the choir. He did not have any immediate comment on the latest findings.

Yet it's those of us who aren't charmed and delighted by choir music who are denounced as cynical monsters.