Vatican City - Germans are asking just when Pope Benedict XVI might say something about the clerical abuse scandal rocking the Catholic church in his native country.
As the scandal has intensified in recent weeks, he chose not to say anything Wednesday during his weekly public audience, an occasion when he offers greetings and issues pronouncements in nine languages.
He took advantage of St. Patrick's Day on March 17 to send his greetings to the Irish, and expressing his regrets over a decades-old scandal in that country and announce he was signing a special letter on clerical abuse addressed to Irish faithful.
German Catholics believed he might make an allusion to them in the Irish letter, but he didn't.
More than 300 former students in German Catholic schools and choirs have come forward since January with abuse claims. The country's government announced Wednesday it will form an expert 40-member committee to investigate.
The allegations have come almost daily, including Wednesday, when the Munich archdiocese confirmed that another person claims to have been molested as a youth in 1998 by a priest who was previously convicted of abuse, the Rev. Peter Hullermann.
The church's management of Hullermann's case overlaps with the time that Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, served as Munich archbishop from 1977 to 1982.
A spokeswoman for a prominent German Catholic activist group criticized the pope Wednesday for his silence.
"It is almost painful to see how this topic is being excluded," Sigrid Grabmeier from "We Are The Church" told The Associated Press.
The Vatican operates on its own agenda, regardless of calls from public opinion and the news media.
On Wednesday, Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of Bishop John Magee - an aide to three popes before assignment in Ireland - who has been accused of endangering children by failing to follow the Irish church's own rules on reporting suspected pedophile priests to police.
The announcement of the resignation was issued without prior notice or particular attention: it garnered two lines in the Vatican's daily bulletin along with the nomination of a new bishop in Gurue, Mozambique.
At the Vatican, keep your eyes on little things.
Last Friday, the Vatican offered a concert for the pope on his name day (St. Joseph). In a show of solidarity the pope invited his older brother, Georg, who has been touched by the abuse scandal.
Monsignor Georg Ratzinger admitted he slapped children years ago when he led a renowned choir in Regensburg, Germany.
The pope made brief remarks on faith and the beauty of music, but again without referring to developments in Germany.
Benedict appears to have an uneasy relationship with his homeland. In five years as pope he has yet to make an official visit to Germany, meaning a stop in Berlin and meetings with political leaders, as he does on most of his foreign travel.
He has been in Germany twice, to celebrate World Youth Day in Cologne and to visit his native Bavaria.
On Wednesday, a new poll in Germany found that confidence in the Catholic church has dropped dramatically in reaction to the scandal.
Only 17 percent of Germans polled said they still trust the Catholic church, compared to 29 percent in late January, just before the first abuse cases were made public, according to the Stern magazine poll.
Many Germans also have lost confidence in the pope, the poll showed. Only 24 percent still trust him, while six weeks ago 38 percent said they did.
Some 1,508 persons were interviewed for the poll last week. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.5 percent.