A new storm engulfs the German Catholic Church, after the scandal of sexual abuse and systematic violence in the Regensburg Choir that came out in 2017. This time the archbishopric of Cologne is the epicenter of a dark and long trail of harassment. 314 victims and 202 perpetrators were identified between 1975 and 2018 and told in a report drawn up by lawyers Björn Gercke and Kerstin Stirner, commissioned by the archbishopric itself. The vast majority of the victims are under the age of 14, their executioners are mostly priests. “I am deeply ashamed” declared the cardinal of Cologne, Rainer Maria Woelki, also for the “concealment” of the abuses. Some senior prelates denounced have already been suspended from their posts.
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“For us, the priority is not ‘what priest X did to child Y’, but rather whether the cardinal, the vicar general and the leaders of the Church acted responsibly,” explained the lawyer Gercke. And the answer, in many cases, is no. Woelki himself is suspected of having covered up in 2014, when he was already a cardinal, the Düsseldorf priest Johannes O., accused of abusing a child in the late 1970s. Woelki had always refused to take action against the pedophile priest, arguing that his dementia made him inaccessible to any questioning.
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The main charges concern Woelki’s predecessor, the late Cardinal Joachim Meisner, who allegedly violated office obligations 24 times. But who is destined to cause the most stir is the current archbishop of Hamburg, Stefan Hesse. Responsible for turning a blind eye to the executioners and neglecting victims in eleven cases, according to the report. Similar accusations concern, in 13 cases, the former vicar general Norbert Feldhoff and in eight cases, the current auxiliary bishop, Dominikus Schwaderlapp. The report also points the finger, again for eight abuses, against former bishop Joseph Höffner.
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In the autumn, Cardinal Woelki refused to publish, amid a thousand controversies, a first report on harassment and pedophilia in the Rhenish diocese. The one released today is a second report, also commissioned by the archbishopric. And after criticism for the decision to seal the first “for legal doubts”, Woelki has decided that it too will be published on 25 March.
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