Germany's justice minister says a Vatican secrecy rule is complicating prosecutors' probes of sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy in the pope's homeland.
The Vatican says it won't comment on Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger's criticizing what she called a "wall of silence."
The minister in a German radio interview Monday cited a 2001 Vatican directive requiring even the most serious abuse cases to be first investigated internally.
Scandals over sexual abuse by Catholic clergy of minors and cover-ups by church hierarchy have exploded worldwide in the last two decades, most recently in Germany and the Netherlands.
