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Cathedral in Augsburg (symbol picture):
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The man was "released from office with immediate effect": in Bavaria a Catholic priest has again made himself suspect of sexual abuse.
As the diocese of Augsburg announced, it is a pastor and dean.
The diocese had previously informed the public prosecutor's office "of a very serious allegation of sexual abuse against the priest."
As the public prosecutor in Memmingen reported, an investigation is now being conducted against the man.
"There is an initial suspicion that the clergyman has made himself punishable over the years through several sex-related acts that are said to have taken place against a person," said Chief Public Prosecutor Thorsten Thamm.
Neither the public prosecutor nor the diocese initially gave any further details about the case.
"The statements made on record in this case, which we became aware of, shake us deeply," said the Augsburg vicar general Harald Heinrich.
According to the announcement, the diocese has initiated a canonical preliminary investigation and informed the Vatican of the suspicion.
A decision about a further deployment of the priest should only be made after the investigation by the public prosecutor's office.
Marx first wants to process the rejection of his resignation
The diocese announced that it was pursuing a "zero tolerance policy" in the fight against abuse.
It called on those affected to report.
Assumptions and suspicions would be consistently pursued.
"Failure and guilt must be named - we owe that to those affected," said Bishop Bertram Meier.
When he took office around a year ago, Meier had decided to clean up after the controversial and arch-conservative Bishop Walter Mixa and the pale Konrad Zdarsa.
The diocese decided on its own to pay those affected up to 75,000 euros each for victims of sexual abuse, thus pre-empting a joint regulation by the Catholic German Bishops' Conference.
For years the church has been rocked by an abuse scandal. There are repeated cases worldwide that clergymen abused or physically abused children. Because of the handling of the abuse scandal, the former chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, offered the Pope his resignation. However, Francis refused - and wants to keep the Archbishop of Munich and Freising in his office.
Marx was surprised by the quick rejection.
"I did not expect that he would react so quickly and I did not expect his decision that I should continue my service as Archbishop of Munich and Freising," he said in a written statement.
Francis presented him with a "great challenge".
After a church service in Munich that evening, Marx said he had to "deal with it first".
According to a study on abuse within the Catholic Church, at least 3,677 minors nationwide were victims of sexual violence by at least 1,670 clergy between 1946 and 2014.
The number of unreported cases is likely to be high, experts speak of up to 100,000 people affected.
apr / dpa