Since the first major abuse scandals were uncovered in 2010, the Catholic Church in Germany has been confronted with the processing of such crimes and their systematic cover-up. Now, for the first time, the orders have also presented figures. And as expected, these are shocking: at least every third Catholic order in Germany records cases of sexual abuse of children and young people.
A survey of members by the umbrella organization of the German Superiors of Orders (DOK) showed that at least 1,412 people reported to the religious communities who stated that they had been sexually abused as children or young people. 654 order members were accused as perpetrators. Most of them - 522 or almost 80 percent - are already dead, announced the DOK in Bonn. 37 accused resigned from their order.
According to the information, some of the incidents go back to the 1950s and 1960s, when many schools and boarding schools were still run by fathers or nuns. The DOK emphasized that the information was not based on a scientific study. It is just an internal survey.
The response rate was high: around three quarters of the religious orders, 291 of 392, returned the questionnaire. 88 percent of today's order members lived in these 291 orders. The smallest orders now only include a handful of people, sometimes even just a single member.
Of the 291 communities that answered the questions, 100 said they had faced allegations of various forms of abuse. That is a good 34 percent. Personal data on victims or accused were not requested in the survey. The order was guaranteed anonymity, explained the DOK.
Of the people who are members of an order in Germany, 75 percent are women and 25 percent men. Men are severely overrepresented among the accused.
The affected organization "Eckiger Tisch" speaks of a scandal in view of the announcement of the figures, which is years too late: "It took the Jesuits, Redemptorists, Salesians, Franciscans and all the other orders ten years to make this determination." The abuse survivors' accusation: the orders deliberately did nothing unhindered for a long time, "probably in the hope that the victims would eventually give up or die, like many perpetrators". All files of the religious orders must now be secured, made available to the public prosecutor's offices and forwarded to a central processing commission to be set up as soon as possible.
The orders would have to agree to help clear up and come to terms with the dark aspects of their past. If they refuse to be informed, the status of corporations under public law would have to be withdrawn, so the demand.
"Clear declaration of intent by the orders"
The representative of the German Bishops 'Conference for questions of sexual abuse, Bishop Stephan Ackermann, however, welcomed "the clear declaration of intent of the orders for further cooperation with the German Bishops' Conference". The aim of the member survey was "to gain differentiated knowledge of the situation in the religious orders, especially since this is not taken into account by the 2018 MHG study".
The MHG study published by the German Bishops' Conference in September 2018 identified 3,677 predominantly male minors who were victims of sexual assault by priests and deacons between 1946 and 2014. The number of perpetrators was put at 1670. The study was controversial because of its methodology.
Icon: The mirrorala / dpa