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Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki during a morning service in Fulda Cathedral
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / dpa
According to the testimony of a witness in court, the Cologne public prosecutor's office is investigating another case against Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki.
According to a spokesman for the public prosecutor's office, it is about the suspicion of false affidavit.
The background is a press law procedure before the Cologne district court.
In this, Woelki takes action against a report in the "Bild" newspaper about the controversial promotion of a pastor to deputy Düsseldorf city dean in 2017.
The pastor had had sex with a 16-year-old prostitute years earlier.
According to Woelkis, the newspaper falsely claimed that when he appointed the pastor, he knew his personal file and that he was aware of a warning from the police.
Woelki had declared in an affidavit that he did not know the contents of the personnel file.
He did hear about the contact with the prostitute.
However, supporters of the pastor had told him that the rumors about the man had not been confirmed.
Former secretary raises new questions
Last week, however, the former secretary of Woelki's predecessor as Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, testified as a witness in court that she had already spoken to the then auxiliary bishop Woelki about the controversial pastor in 2011.
Among other things, she told him during a phone call that the pastor went to the sauna with altar boys and was lewd towards young people.
"So far, the public prosecutor's office has refrained from investigating the case," said the spokesman for the authority.
“That has changed with the testimony of the witness.” She gives “sufficient reason to investigate the truthfulness of Cardinal Woelki's affidavit.”
The presumption of innocence applies to Woelki until the investigation is completed.
The Archdiocese has so far received no comment on request.
Lawyer sees statements by Woelkis "zero refuted"
According to the testimony of the former Meisner secretary last week, Woelki's lawyer said that from his point of view the witness had even "exonerated" the cardinal.
Because she did not describe any "concrete or even criminal indications of abuse" that she would have spoken to the auxiliary bishop.
In this respect, the cardinal's statement that at the time of Father D.'s promotion, apart from the non-criminal contact with a prostitute in 2001, he only knew of unproven "rumors" was "zero refuted" by her statement.
Two weeks ago, the Cologne public prosecutor's office had already initiated investigations against Woelki in another case, also on suspicion of false affidavit.
The trigger for this was an interview in the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger”, in which the former assistant to the head of human resources in the archdiocese said that she had informed Woelki early on about allegations of abuse against the former Sternsinger boss Winfried Pilz.
Woelki rejects this accusation.
Advent service cancelled
Meanwhile, the president of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, Thorsten Latzel, has canceled the traditional ecumenical vespers planned for next Sunday, according to a report in the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger".
"The service at the beginning of Advent is overshadowed by the events in the Archdiocese of Cologne in such a way that prayer or preaching is no longer perceived, but only the question of positioning in the inner-Catholic debate," Latzel's spokesman Jens-Peter Iven told the newspaper.
In the current situation, a celebration in the usual setting with archbishop and president "according to the assessment of the church leadership is not advisable".
Woelki has long been criticized for his handling of abuse cases in the archdiocese.
Pope Francis had asked him to submit a resignation, which Woelki did.
However, the Pope has not yet decided whether to accept the request.
bbr/dpa