Archdiocese of Cologne: »The Vatican’s failure to act burdens and damages the Catholic Church as a whole«

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The Catholic Church is again under criticism - because of new allegations against the Archdiocese of Cologne (symbol image)

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Michael Bruns/Getty Images/500px

In addition to the abuse scandal and the allegations against Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, there were recently reports about the payment of a priest's private gambling debts from a fund that was intended to compensate victims of abuse: In view of all these events in the Archdiocese of Cologne, the President of the Central Committee of the German Catholics (ZdK), Imre Stetter-Karp, gave a devastating testimony to the Catholic Church for its crisis management.

"The still unresolved crisis in the Archdiocese of Cologne, including the Vatican's inaction, burdens and damages the Catholic Church as a whole," Stetter-Karp told the Rheinische Post on Sunday.

In the archdiocese it can be seen "like in a burning glass" that "continuing as is is not responsible".

“The situation in Cologne provides all the evidence that the time for reforms is pressing and that no, really no, delay is tolerated,” said Stetter-Karp.

»Woelki lacks the pastoral and social skills«

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki took a break in Cologne last October against the background of allegations of the abuse scandal;

this ended at the beginning of March.

During the hiatus, Woelki offered Pope Francis his resignation from the office of archbishop.

A decision on this is still pending.

Stetter-Karp criticized this.

In her view, the "persistent state of limbo harms everyone, ultimately including the cardinal himself."

On Thursday, the reform movement "We are Church" protested against Woelki in front of Cologne Cathedral and symbolically showed him the red card.

"The many lonely and apparently wrong decisions made by Cardinal Woelki on factual and personnel issues show that he lacks the pastoral and social skills for the office of bishop of one of the largest and richest dioceses," said "We are Church" spokesman Christian Weisner of the "Rheinische Post «.

Even after his return from the break, Woelki "unfortunately didn't change his absolutist and clerical behavior," Weisner complained.

The effects are "catastrophic" not only for the Archdiocese, but for the entire Church in Germany.

The payments for private gambling debts of a priest in the Archdiocese of Cologne, which became known a few days ago, are causing new resentment.

As the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger" reported, the diocese paid almost 500,000 euros for the gambling debts and more than 600,000 euros for the associated additional tax payments.

The process was confirmed in principle by the Archdiocese.

According to the "Stadt-Anzeiger", the money flowed partly from a social fund of the diocese, from which compensation for victims of sexual abuse is otherwise paid, among other things.

The spokesman for the Advisory Council of the Catholic German Bishops' Conference (DBK) for victims of sexual abuse, Johannes Norpoth, called the process "disturbing and shameful" in the newspaper.

Victims of sexual violence in the church have struggled for years for real recognition of their suffering, Norpoth said.

60 percent of the applicants received less than 20,000 euros.

"Victims of sex crimes, sometimes without a secure income like a priest, are fobbed off with an amount that is less than two percent of what the church was willing to pay to compensate for a priest's self-inflicted financial difficulties," he criticized .

According to the archdiocese, it had paid a total of 1.15 million euros for the over-indebted priest.

The archdiocese paid the debt in several tranches in order to help the clergyman in his acute emergency.

Some of the funds were taken from a special fund from which payments to victims of sexual abuse would also be made.

The wage tax payment plus interest, on the other hand, was paid from the archdiocese's personnel cost budget.

fok/AFP/dpa