Another mass sexual abuse scandal shakes Germany’s largest Catholic diocese

Cologne, Germany
An independent report commissioned by the Catholic Church has revealed hundreds of cases of sexual abuse by clergy and secular officials in Germany’s largest diocese, its authors said Thursday.
The long-awaited 800-page document on the Diocese of Cologne identified 202 perpetrators of sexual assault and 314 victims between 1975 and 2018, lawyer commissioned by the Church, Bjoern Gercke, told reporters.

“More than half of the victims were children under the age of 14,” Gercke said.
About 70% of the alleged perpetrators were members of the clergy and the rest lay, he detailed. If the latter were sanctioned, this was not the case for priests, he stressed.

The report, however, exonerates Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, suspected of having wanted to hide the extent of the abuses, of any reprehensible act. “It makes me deeply ashamed”, reacted Woelki, who suspended with immediate effect two leaders of the Church of Cologne, Mgr Dominikus Schwaderlapp and the head of the diocesan court Guenter Assenmacher, for having “concealed” cases of abuse .

“The acts must also have consequences for members of the clergy,” said the cardinal.
Churchmen accused of negligence in handling these cases, most of which date back to the 1970s, include the current Archbishop of Hamburg, Stefan Hesse, a former personal leader in Cologne, as well as the two predecessors, now deceased. , From Woelki to the head of the diocese.

Woelki said in early March that he would “temporarily suspend, if necessary, those named in the report,” before drawing concrete conclusions on March 23.

“Creepy”

“The extent of the abuses and violations of religious leaders of their duty”, as described in the report, is “terrifying”, reacted the government commissioner for questions of sexual assault, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig, who stressed publication after an “excruciating wait”.
Woelki caused a scandal last year by refusing to publish a first report for the period 1975 to 2018, citing breaches and data protection concerns.

The decision exasperated the victims, caused massive flight in his diocese and the incomprehension of his peers. So much so that the cardinal asked for this new report. Bishop Woelki’s communication is “a disaster”, judged the head of the assembly of bishops Georg Bätzing at the end of February, in a severe and unusual criticism.

It is “the greatest crisis the Church has ever known,” said Tim Kurzbach, president of the council of the diocese of Cologne, which brings together clergy and laity.
The controversy with Woelki arose at a time when the Catholic Church had made strides in acknowledging her guilt and compensating victims.
In 2018, a Church-commissioned report found that 3,677 children and adolescents have been sexually abused by more than 1,000 clergy since 1946. Most of those responsible for these events have not been punished.

By not having access to all the files, the authors of the study warned that the number of victims was probably higher.
The revelations, similar to other scandals in countries like Australia, Chile, France, Ireland and the United States, prompted Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a reformer, to apologize on behalf of the ‘German Catholic Church.

Flight of the faithful –

The Church pays compensation – deemed insufficient by the victims – of 5,000 euros (approximately $ 6,000) per person in “recognition of their suffering”, as well as the costs of therapy.
In addition, each diocese has launched an additional local inquiry under the supervision of a joint commission.
The case of Cologne also affects the possibilities of modernization of the Church currently under discussion within the framework of a synod.
It is also a question of retaining the faithful, who pay a tax in Germany and help to finance, for example, charities.
The number of members of the Catholic Church, still in the majority in the country, fell to 22.6 million in 2019, 2 million less than in 2010, the year the sexual abuse scandals were exposed.
Pope Francis has taken action to address the silence surrounding child sexual abuse in the Church. In 2019, he passed a landmark measure that requires clergy to report any sexual abuse.