He was eagerly awaited.
Over some 800 pages, the independent report commissioned by the Catholic Church in Germany reveals a sordid tally.
That of victims of pedophilia in the diocese of Cologne, the largest in the country, between 1975 and 2018.
He certifies that during this period, 314 minors, mostly boys under the age of 14, suffered sexual violence from 202 alleged perpetrators, lawyer Björn Gercke told a press conference.
About 70% of the alleged perpetrators were members of the clergy, the rest lay people, he detailed.
If the latter were sanctioned, this was not the case with the priests.
"It makes me deeply ashamed", reacted Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, announcing in the wake of the suspension with immediate effect of two members of his diocese implicated for having covered these acts.
The report also clears the cardinal of any fault, suspected of having wanted to hide the extent of the abuses.
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Cardinal Woelki's "disastrous" communication
The management of this very sensitive file by Cardinal Woelki has for months caused a serious crisis in the largest diocese of Germany: this conservative in the ranks of the church had caused an uproar last year by refusing to make public a first report citing data protection breaches and issues.
The decision aroused the exasperation of the victims, the mass flight of the faithful in his diocese, and the incomprehension of his peers.
So much so that the cardinal, under pressure, asked for this new report.
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Monsignor Woelki's communication is "a disaster", judged the head of the assembly of bishops Georg Bätzing at the end of February, in an unusually severe criticism.
"The greatest crisis the Church has ever experienced"
It is "the greatest crisis that the Church has ever experienced," said Tim Kurzbach, president of the diocesan council of Cologne, which brings together ecclesiastics and laity.
The controversy arose at a time when the Catholic Church had made some progress in recognizing its fault and compensating the victims.
“The Cologne tragedy around the report and the cardinal has somewhat masked this aspect,” recently regretted the government commissioner for questions of sexual assault, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig.
Thousands more children abused between 1946 and 2014
In 2017, an investigation report revealed that at least 547 children of the Catholic choir in Regensburg were allegedly victims of abuse, including rape, between 1945 and the early 1990s.
Then in 2018, a survey by a consortium of university researchers showed that at least 3,677 children or adolescents had been sexually abused between 1946 and 2014 by 1,670 religious.
Most have never been punished.
Without having had access to all the archives, the authors of the study warned that the number of victims was probably higher.
After officially apologizing, the bishops had fixed compensation - deemed insufficient by the victims - "up to € 50,000" per person, against € 5,000 so far.
And each diocese has started an additional local investigation under the supervision of a joint commission.
Withhold the faithful who pay tax
Because the stake is enormous for the dioceses: it is a question of retaining the faithful, who pay a tax in Germany and contribute to finance in particular the charitable associations.
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"The Kentler experience" in Berlin: when children were knowingly entrusted to pedophiles
Members of the Catholic Church, which remains the largest denomination in the country, fell to 22.6 million in 2019, down 2 million from 2010, when pedophilia scandals were exposed.
Since then, hundreds of cases of sexual abuse suffered by minors in religious institutions have been revealed, notably in the very upscale Canisius College in Berlin.