With allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic priests piling up in Germany and Ireland and surfacing in Austria and the Netherlands, Europe appears poised to face church abuse in the broad, wrenching way the United States did in the last decade.

But because Europe is home to the Catholic Church, new revelations of abuse there could have different -- and more serious -- consequences for the church and Pope Benedict XVI.

"Is he likely to resign? No," Vatican analyst John Allen told CNN, referring to the pope. "The last pope to resign was in the 12th century. To date, very few Catholic bishops of any sort have resigned over mishandling the crisis."

"Does this do enormous damage to him and his papacy, does it damage his moral credibility and his reputation?" Allen continued. "There is a risk there."

In recent weeks allegations of abuse by priests have been accumulating fastest in Germany, Benedict's home country. On Friday, the archdiocese of Munich revealed that it had allowed an abusive priest to continue pastoring in the early 1980s, when Pope Benedict -- then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- was archbishop there.

It was the first incident of the handling of a case of priestly sexual abuse to possibly implicate the pontiff himself.

The Vatican responded swiftly to the disclosure, with the archdiocese's number two official from the time claiming full responsibility for allowing the priest to continue ministering.
Video: Alleged abuse victim speaks

But more sexual abuse allegations are expected to emerge across Europe. "It is like a tsunami or an extensive fire," said Father Andreas Batlogg, editor of the German Jesuit magazine Stimmen der Zeit. "The estimated number of undetected cases seems to be far higher than the yet known ones."

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