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| Archbishop of Munich and Chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference and Trier Bishop, Cardinal Reinhard Marx (left), and commissioner for sexual abuse issues in the ecclesiastical sphere, Stephan Ackermann, give a press conference to present the results of the study on “Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests, Deacons and Male Religious” (MHG study) on September 25, 2018 in Fulda, western Germany. AFP |
FULDA, Germany — Germany’s Catholic Church on Tuesday apologized to victims of sexual assault by clergy, with the institution’s top cardinal saying perpetrators must be brought to justice.
Cardinal
Reinhard Marx said he was ashamed over the decades of abuse that have shattered
trust, the crimes carried out by officials of the Church, as well as how so
many have looked away for so long.
The dismay
expressed by the head of the German Bishops’ Conference came as the institution
published a damning report showing that in Germany, almost 3,700 minors —
mostly boys — were assaulted between 1946 and 2014.
The
report’s authors said however that the figure was “the tip of the iceberg” and
that the real extent of the problem was far greater.
“I have to
say very clearly that sexual abuse is a crime. Those who are guilty must be
punished,” said Cardinal Marx.
“For all
the failures and for all the pain, as chairman of Germany’s Bishops Conference,
I apologize. I also apologize on a personal basis.
“We are not
done with confronting the incidents and consequences, it begins now,” he
stressed at a press conference.
‘Abuse,
transfers, cover-ups’
Victims
have criticized the report for falling short of what is needed to flush out
perpetrators.
They urged
the Church to bring in independent experts for a thorough audit, adding that
victims should be offered compensation.
“The system
of abuse, transfers (of offending priests) and cover-ups cannot be mapped out”
by a study that had access only to available personnel documents, said the
victims’ association Eckiger Tisch.
“We are not
given names of perpetrators. There are no names given of the responsible
bishops who have perfected the system of covering up sexual attacks over
decades.”
Justice Minister
Katarina Barley also urged the Church to “take responsibility for decades of
concealment, cover-ups and denials” and to work with state prosecutors to bring
every known case to justice.
The
independent commissioner for child sex abuse issues, Johannes-Wilhelm Roerig,
recommended state authorities step in to clear up the crimes and ensure victims
get access to Church files and compensation.
The state
“has a duty of care for all children, including those who are in the care of
the Church,” he told the Sueddeutsche newspaper.
Predator
priests
According
to the study, 1,670 clergymen in Germany committed some form of sexual attack
against 3,677 minors, mostly boys, between 1946 and 2014, intimidating their
victims into keeping quiet.
More than
half of the victims were 13 years old or younger, the study concluded, after
examining 38,000 documents from the 27 German dioceses.
Researchers
from three universities who carried out the survey warned that the true scale
of the abuse was far greater, as many documents had been “destroyed or
manipulated”.
Predator
priests were often transferred to another parish, which was not warned about
their criminal history.
Only about
one in three were subject to disciplinary hearings by the Church, and most got
away with minimal punishment. Only 38 percent were prosecuted by civil courts.
Systemic
abuse
The
research is the latest in a series of reports on sexual crimes and cover-ups
worldwide spanning decades that has shaken the Catholic Church.
Pope
Francis has found himself embroiled after conservative US Archbishop Carlo
Maria Vigano claimed the pontiff had himself ignored abuse allegations against
prominent US cardinal Theodore McCarrick for five years.
Francis has
so far refused to respond to the allegations.
He has
however announced a Vatican meeting of national Church leaders on the
protection of minors, for February 2019.
Joerg Schuh
of the Berlin-based Tauwetter centre for victims of sexual abuse told AFP TV
that “the Catholic Church has a global problem”.
“I would
like the Pope to make it his number one topic, and for his Church to really
work on it,” he said.
Major abuse
cases in Germany have included a Berlin elite Jesuit school and the
world-famous Catholic choir school the Regensburger Domspatzen where more than
500 boys suffered sexual or physical
abuse.
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