Over 200 child molesters (243, to be exact) and at least 346 victims. This is one of the shocking figures contained in the report on sexual abuse in the most powerful German diocese, that of Cologne. Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki – at the center of a heated debate because he had postponed the publication of the report and had not published a previous one – relieved the auxiliary bishop Monsignor Dominikus Schwaderlapp from their functions, who would have put his office in the hands of Pope Francis , and the official Guenter Assenmacher, head of the archiepiscopal court. The report, commissioned by Bishop Woelki himself, leader of the conservative wing in the German episcopate, was announced by the Munich law firm that conducted the investigation.
Among the approximately 243 identified molesters, there are priests or lay people who worked for the church. The cases would concern the years between 1975 and 2018. About 55% of cases relate to children under the age of 14 and about half relate to sexual violence. Almost two thirds of the abuses were committed by members of the clergy, the rest by lay people. The report also indicated a clear increase in reported abuses between 2004 and 2018.
In a statement, the archdiocese of Cologne specifies that the “Independent investigation into the management of sexual violence in the Archdiocese of Cologne” covers the period from 1975 to 2018 and examines in detail 236 files “with the aim of identifying the most concretely possible, any shortcomings and violations of the law, as well as those responsible “. In presenting the report (800 pages), Cologne criminal law experts Bjoern Gercke and Kerstin Stirner stressed that they had “encountered a system of lack of accountability, lack of legal clarity, lack of control and lack of transparency, which in each case favored secrecy and in which many parties were involved, even outside the Archdiocese of Cologne. Consequently, one should not speak of ‘systematic cover-up’ by the leaders of the Archdiocese of Cologne, but of ‘systematic cover-up or inherent to the system’.
According to the experts, Cardinal Woelki is not responsible for omissions while other high-level ecclesiastical figures are cited who allegedly committed defaults. Among these, the current archbishop of Hamburg, Monsignor Stefan Hesse, former vicar general in Cologne and who would also have resigned to Pope Francis. And the report also cites Cardinal Joachim Meisner, who died in 2017, close to Benedict XVI and opponent of Bergoglio (he was among the four cardinals – Carlo Caffarra, Walter Brandmueller and Raymond Leo Burke – who attacked him with the 5 ‘dubia’ on Amoris Laetitia, ed). Indeed, it is he, Meisner, Woelki’s predecessor, who is the most in default, with regard to about a third of all the cases examined.
“I am deeply ashamed,” Cardinal Woelki said at a press conference, who has repeatedly stated that he has always been concerned first of all to clarify and – as far as possible – justice for the victims of sexual abuse. After the presentation of the report by the lawyers, the cardinal received a copy of the report. The experts handed another to Peter Bringmann-Henselder of the Archdiocese’s Advisory Council for Sexual Abuse Victims, who commented: “We had to wait long, too long as victims, for this important clarification step. But today I am happy that at least this first promise has been kept ».