At the historic summit, the church admitted to having destroyed records of sexual abuse

"The records that could have documented these terrible acts and indicate the names of those responsible have been destroyed or even not created"said the president of the German Bishops' Conference.

"The badual abuse of children and young people is due, in a not insignificant part, to the abuse of power of the administration", said the German cardinal, in his speech to the summit participants, among whom 114 presidents of episcopal conferences around the world were invited to talk about the silence and concealment of pedophilia on the part of the hierarchy of the world. Church.

"Instead of punishing the guilty, it is the victims who have been reprimanded and silenced", he lamented.

"The procedures and procedures put in place to prosecute these crimes have been deliberately ignored or even erased or canceled"he insisted.

"In fact, the rights of victims have been trampled on and left to the free will of individuals"denounced Cardinal Marx.

The German cardinal, known for his progressive positions, criticized the fact that the "pontifical secret" It is often presented as a justification by the Church and even worse in cases of badual abuse committed by priests.

The cardinal called for greater transparency of the trials conducted by the Church and demanded that the number of cases examined by the ecclesiastical courts and the details concerning them be disclosed.