Archbishop's Ordinariate in Munich (archive picture)
Photo: Christina Sabrowsky / dpa
The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising plans to present its long-awaited abuse report next week.
The research network "Correctiv" and the Bayerischer Rundfunk have now met a 40-year-old man who claims to have been abused for several years by the convicted serial offender and former priest Peter H. in the Upper Bavarian community of Garching an der Alz in the early 1990s .
"To send this condemned and untreatable man back to a community and to have so many children and adolescents work with you, that just makes you stunned and a little bit aggressive," said the man in the interview on Wednesday.
He bears the name Stefan in it.
As the Garching Initiative Sauerteig, which wants to deal with abuse in its parish, confirmed to the dpa news agency, "Stefan" is a fourth victim.
So far, the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising had knowledge of three alleged victims from Garching.
On request, the archdiocese confirmed that a fourth person affected had reported there at the end of 2021, but did not appear at an agreed meeting - "so that the archdiocese has not yet had any further knowledge".
It was initially unclear whether this was "Stefan".
The case of Priest H. has been making headlines for years: the clergyman had been transferred from North Rhine-Westphalia to Bavaria after allegations of abuse, while the later Pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was Archbishop of Munich and Freising.
There he became a criminal.
Convicted of child abuse
According to the archbishopric, the district court of Ebersberg sentenced the then chaplain H. in June 1986 for sexual abuse of minors to 18 months' suspended prison sentence and a fine of 4,000 marks.
The probationary period was fixed for five years, and H. was ordered to go to psychotherapy.
After the verdict, H. was transferred again - this time to Garching an der Alz, where he then worked as a pastor for around 20 years - and is said to have abused children again.
In the coming week, the Munich law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) plans to publish an opinion on cases of abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, in which the case of Priest H. and Ratzinger's role should play a central role.
According to "Correctiv" and BR, "Stefan" also spoke to the law firm.
Archdiocese made false statements in 2010
Last year the archbishopric admitted that H. continued to abuse children even after his transfer to the Upper Bavarian community, even after his court ruling.
The sentence "Since the court ruling in 1986 the Ordinariate has not been aware of any further incidents" from a diocese communication from 2010 is no longer true today.
In 2008 - after around 20 years - H. was recalled from the community and transferred again, this time to Bad Tölz.
He has since been suspended and ordered back to his home diocese in Essen.
Cardinal Ratzinger is said to have known the priest's history
Garching an der Alz is only 30 minutes by car from Marktl am Inn, the birthplace of the Bavarian Pope Benedict XVI.
And you can only talk about it to a limited extent in the Garching parish of St. Nikolaus.
Because the now emeritus Pope was as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from 1977 to 1982 Archbishop of Munich and Freising and thus in service as Priest H. was transferred to Bavaria and deployed in Grafing near Munich, after having had children in his home diocese of Essen in North Rhine-Westphalia supposed to have abused.
The role of the future Pope in the H. scandal has been as unclear as it is controversial for years.
It is known that there is an internal church decree on the H. case from 2016, from which several media cited in recent years.
Most recently, the "Zeit" reported that Ratzinger was also explicitly mentioned in it: Although he had knowledge of the history of the alleged abuse priest, he accepted and installed him in his diocese.
ala / dpa