A period of ten years: External auditors check the award of the contract in Cardinal Woelki's diocese

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Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki is currently on a break

Photo: Christoph Hardt / imago images / Future Image

At the beginning of the month it became known that Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki had spent around 2.8 million euros on dealing with the sexual abuse.

PR consulting alone accounted for 820,000 euros of this.

Now external auditors are to examine the contracts awarded in the Archdiocese of Cologne from the past ten years.

The archbishopric announced that it should be clarified whether there were omissions in canon law.

Woelki, who is extremely controversial in his own archdiocese, is currently on a break.

His representative, Auxiliary Bishop Rudolf Steinhäuser, had announced that in the past orders may not have been awarded in accordance with canon law.

Orders for the procurement of furniture and information technology are also to be examined.

According to previous knowledge, financial damage has not occurred, said the archdiocese.

kim / dpa