Norway's Catholic Church has received new allegations of clergy abuse after revealing that its former bishop had admitted to molesting a minor in the early 1990s, a church official said Thursday.
The current bishop, Bernt Eidsvig, told The Associated Press he had received e-mails alleging new cases of abuse, but said the nature and seriousness of the claims remain unclear.
"There may be something very serious there. But there may also be things there that lunatics made up," Eidsvig said. "Whether it is abuse of minors or stupid priests doing things which are sinful but not illegal or things between adults - I can't say yet."
Church officials disclosed on Wednesday that the reason Eidsvig's predecessor, 58-year-old Georg Mueller, resigned in June was that he had admitted to abusing a boy about 20 years earlier, when he was a priest.
It was the latest in a string of abuse cases rocking the Catholic Church across Europe in recent weeks.
In Spain on Wednesday, a Catholic clergyman was convicted of sexual abuse for molesting a 10 year-old girl and an 11-year-old girl at a school there. Identified only as F.V.T., the clergyman was given a two-year suspended prison sentence and fined.
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