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Cologne Cathedral: »Incomparable individual case that would not be repeated today«
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Oliver Berg / picture alliance / dpa
The Catholic Church in Cologne helped a priest with 500,000 euros out of an acute financial emergency, then a lavish subsequent taxation including interest was due.
The Archdiocese received massive criticism for this approach – which the administration has now rejected.
The archdiocese announced that this was an acute and “completely extraordinary personal emergency”.
For reasons of privacy protection, one cannot go into detail, but there is no evidence that the priest's debts were gambling debts.
Reports in the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” had suggested that the liabilities were at least partly due to gambling.
Last week, research by the newspaper also revealed that the Archdiocese of Cologne had paid a total of 1.15 million euros for the over-indebted priest.
Abuse representatives criticize the procedure
The priest was almost 500,000 euros in debt, finally confirmed the archdiocese.
The subsequent taxation of the debt repayment, including interest, cost the Archdiocese another almost 650,000 euros.
In the statement on Tuesday, the archdiocese wrote that no church tax money had been used to pay off the debt.
Rather, funds from a special fund – the so-called BB fund – were used.
"It is important to note that not a cent was used that was intended to pay benefits to victims of sexualized violence," emphasized the Archdiocese.
"The provisions formed for this continue to exist in full."
The criticism of the payments continues.
Patrick Bauer from the Advisory Board of the German Bishops' Conference is quoted by the portal catholic.de, citing the Catholic News Agency (KNA): "I find it catastrophic to pay the debts that have arisen.
In a worst-case scenario, every other person in a situation like this has to go into personal bankruptcy.« In his work as a prison chaplain, he met inmates »who are sitting here because of far less debt«.
On the other hand, the archdiocese says that a legal review has shown that approval of this procedure by the supervisory and control bodies of the archdiocese was not necessary.
The tax liability resulting from the debt repayment was paid in 2020 from the current budget of the archdiocese.
As a result, no budget in the business plan was exceeded.
"The Archdiocese of Cologne maintains that the case described is an incomparable individual case that would not be repeated today," it says.
The case was also heavily criticized because victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the past should often be satisfied with just a few thousand euros.
apr/dpa
