VATICAN CITY -(Dow Jones)- A burgeoning sex-abuse scandal among German priests escalated on Friday with a disclosure by Pope Benedict XVI's former archdiocese, which said a priest known to the church as a sex abuser had been returned to pastoral work there while Benedict was the presiding archbishop in 1980.

The priest later was convicted of another act of abuse within the Munich-Freising archdiocese.

The archdiocese's top administrative deputy took "full responsibility" for the decision to return the priest to work, and Benedict, who at that time was the Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, was unaware of it despite his position, said a statement by the archdiocese. But it said the archbishop "was involved" in decisions to house the priest at the archdiocese, where he was given therapy.

The disclosure came amid a flurry of recent allegations of sexual abuse by priests in Germany, and came on a day when the pope was briefed on the cases by a top German archbishop. After the briefing, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops Conference, told reporters that the pope was "greatly dismayed" and "deeply moved" by the alleged abuses he had detailed during their meeting.

Archbishop Zollitsch did not publicly address the disclosure from Munich-Freising, which came later in the day.

Pope Benedict has campaigned openly against abuse by priests, condemning such incidents and stripping offenders of their ministry.

But the 30-year-old case from his own archdiocese seemed likely to touch off new questions about the pope's history in church deliberations over handling sexual offenders, and about the accountability of the Church's highest officials.

More than 100 German Catholics recently have reported incidents of sexual abuse by church officials, dating back to the 1950s, church officials say. Church leaders have asked both victims and perpetrators to report incidents of abuse in Catholic schools and communities.

A separate investigation is under way in Regensburg involving alleged abuse of members of a children's choir, where the pope's brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, served as a priest and choir director. Msgr. Ratzinger, who is 86 years old and now retired, told a newspaper that he wasn't aware of any sexual abuse at the choir. He said he had slapped children as a punishment, but stopped when it was outlawed in the 1980s.

The Munich-Freisig case concerns a priest who the archdiocese alleged had sexually abused boys, and came to live in the archdiocese in January 1980 to receive therapy.

The priest, identified only with an "H" in the diocese's statement, was returned to pastoral work a month after he arrived. He remained in Munich-Freising until 1982 without any complaints of abuse being filed, the diocese said. In 1982, then-Archbishop Ratzinger left Munich to become head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The priest later moved to Grafing, also located in the Munich-Freising archdiocese, where he was convicted in 1986 of sexually abusing minors, the statement said.

Papal spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi declined to comment beyond referring questions to the archdiocese statement.

The Munich-Freising archdiocese said the case came to light during an investigation recently launched by its current archbishop, Reinhald Marx. Diocesean investigators concluded that the priest was brought to Munich-Freising in 1980 to undergo therapy "presumably because of his sexual relations with boys," the statement said. The archdiocese did not provide any further details on the priest's history prior to his arrival in Munich.

"It was decided to house (the priest) in a vicarage so he could begin his therapy," the statement said, adding that then-Archbishop Ratzinger "helped make this decision."

In February 1980, General Vicar Gerhard Gruber, the top administrative official in the Munich-Freising archdiocese, decided to return the priest to a parish in Munich, where he worked as a pastor "without any further restrictions" on his ministry, the statement said.

In a statement released through the archdiocese, Father Gruber said "the continuous assignments of (the priest) in pastoral care was a grave mistake. I take full responsibility for this. I deeply regret that these decision may have caused misdeeds with young people, and I apologize to everybody to whom this has caused harm."

In September 1982, the priest was transferred to a parish in Grafing, located inside the Munich-Freising diocese. In January 1985, the priest was "relieved of his duty" when "allegations of sexual abuse and a police investigation against him became public knowledge," the statement said.

A court in Ebersberg convicted the priest of sexually abusing minors in June 1986 and gave him a suspended prison sentence of 18 months and five years probation. The court also fined the priest 4000 German marks and ordered him to undergo psychological therapy, the statement said.

After the conviction, the priest again returned to pastoral service. "The relatively mild punishment of the court in Ebersberg and the statements made by the psychologists who treated him were key to his new placement in pastoral care," the statement said.

In May 2008, the priest was removed from his ministry at a parish in Garching. He was later appointed to work in the archdiocese's tourism operations, the statement said, adding that the priest was not permitted to "conduct any work involving children, youth and altar boys. No further allegations have been made against the priest, the statement said.

(Margherita Stancati contributed to this article.)

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