COLOGNE, Germany (AP) – A report commissioned by the German Archdiocese of Cologne on the treatment of church officials of past cases of sexual abuse found 75 cases in which senior officials dismissed their duties. Thursday’s findings motivated the Archbishop of Hamburg to offer his resignation to Pope Francis.
The report commissioned by the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, acquits Woelki himself of any negligence in duty with respect to victims of abuse.
However, Woelki’s late predecessor, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, was charged with two dozen cases of wrongful acts, such as not following or reporting cases of abuse, not punishing the perpetrators or not caring for the victims. . Meisner retired in 2014 and died in 2017.
The Archbishop of Hamburg Stefan Hesse, formerly a senior church official in Cologne, was charged with eleven cases of negligence of his duty.
On Thursday, Hesse issued a video statement in which he admitted that he had made “mistakes” in the past and said he deeply regretted causing new suffering to the victims or their relatives “for my action or omission”.
“I never participated in disguises,” he said. “However, I am willing to take my share of the responsibility for the failure of the system.”
“To avoid damage to the office of the archbishop and the archdiocese of Hamburg, I am offering my resignation to Pope Francis and I ask him to relieve me immediately of my duties,” he said.
The Vatican made no immediate comment and it was unlikely that Francis would act quickly on Hesse’s offer. At 54, Hesse is more than 20 years away from the normal retirement age for bishops. Francis has previously refused, at least initially, to accept resignations when he was offered to repent for abusing cases of sexual abuse, although he has given in after time.
The lawyer in charge of the report, Bjoern Gercke, told reporters in Cologne that his investigation dealt with the cases of 314 victims of abuse (most of whom were under the age of 14 at the time of the abuse). ) and 202 people accused of abuse. in the diocese of Cologne since 1975.
The focus was not so much on what the suspects did to the victims, but on whether the church — former and current archbishops, vicars general, and other senior church officials — responded correctly to allegations of abuse. .
In all, the report found 75 cases in which eight high-ranking officials set aside their duties to follow up, report or sanction cases of alleged abuse by clergy and employees of the secular church and did not take care of the victims.
Woelki has infuriated many local Catholics in recent months, citing legal concerns to keep under an initial report on how local church officials reacted when priests were accused of sexual abuse. He commissioned the new report: an 800-page investigation based on church archives and prepared by a German law firm.
Gercke said the first report, made by a Munich law firm, had also concluded that the current archbishop was not guilty of any wrongdoing. The Archdiocese of Cologne has the most Catholics in Germany, about 1.9 million.
In an initial response to the new report, Woelki said the investigation confirmed his fears that senior officials were guilty of failing to report the perpetrators and thus avoid prosecution.
“My predecessors are also guilty: as of today it is no longer possible to say‘ We didn’t know, ’” Woelki said, adding that he would send the report to the Holy See in Rome.
Woelki said he would also temporarily suspend two Cologne church officials based on the findings of the investigation. One of them, Auxiliary Bishop Dominikus Schwaderlapp, also said he had offered his resignation to the pope. The report found that Schwaderlapp neglected its duty to report and report allegations of abuse in eight cases.
German Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said the report once again demonstrated “what horrific sexual violence children and adolescents must suffer in Catholic institutions”.
“Child abuse is not an internal matter of the church, but a crime that must be examined and decided by the criminal courts,” the minister said.
Jens Windel, 46, founder of a clergy abuse survivor support group, watched a live broadcast of the press conference on the report on his laptop with other victims outside the iconic cathedral of Cologne.
The report, he said, “trivializes the seriousness of the cover-ups that occurred.”
There have been fierce criticisms of Woelki’s transmission of the previous report. The head of the German Episcopal Conference, Bishop of Limburg Georg Baetzing, last month described crisis management in Cologne as a “disaster”.
A Cologne court announced last month that it was increasing the number of appointments available for people who wanted to formally leave the church to 1,500 a month from 1,000 as of March, amid strong demand.
Revelations about past sexual abuse have haunted the church in Germany and elsewhere for years.
In 2018, a report commissioned by the church concluded that at least 3,677 people were mistreated by the clergy in Germany between 1946 and 2014. More than half of the victims were 13 years old or younger when the abuse occurred and almost a third of them were altar boys. .
In January, a new system developed by the church to compensate victims of abuse came into effect. It provides for payments of up to about 50,000 euros (almost $ 60,000) to each person. According to a previous system existing since 2011, payments averaged about 5,000 euros.
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Kirsten Grieshaber reported from Berlin. Geir Moulson in Berlin and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.