Suspected of wanting to hide the extent of sexual violence in his diocese, the Cardinal of Cologne publishes Thursday, March 18, a report supposed to shed light and alleviate the crisis into which he has plunged the German Catholic Church.
Commissioned by the clergyman, this independent study will be unveiled at 10 a.m. and should give an overview of the scale of allegations of sexual assault against minors in the largest diocese of Germany, deliver the names of suspects, or those who covered them.
To read also: Pedophilia: the bishops in special assembly
Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, a conservative within the Church, did not rule out resigning if he was questioned.
He caused an uproar last year by refusing to make public a first report covering the period from 1975 to 2018, citing breaches and data protection problems.
The decision aroused the exasperation of the victims, the mass flight of the faithful in his diocese, and the incomprehension of his peers.
So much so that the cardinal asked for this new report which will be presented by a lawyer from Cologne, Björn Gercke.
Bishop Woelki's communication is
“a disaster”
, judged the head of the assembly of bishops Georg Bätzing at the end of February, in an unusually severe criticism.
It is
"the greatest crisis the Church has ever experienced"
, estimated Tim Kurzbach, president of the diocesan council of Cologne, which brings together ecclesiastics and laity.
According to media reports, the authors of the new report, who used material from the Munich study and Church records, identified some 200 perpetrators of child sexual abuse - priests and lay people - and around 300 victims, twice as many as assumed so far.
In the local newspaper
Rheinische Post
, Björn Gercke spoke in several cases of
"serious shortcomings"
of officials, including at a high level.
Bishop Woelki warned at the beginning of March that he would suspend
“temporarily, if necessary, the people named in the report”
before drawing concrete consequences on March 23.
He reaffirmed his unwavering desire to clarify the facts:
"Only truth can free us from the shadows of the past,"
he said.
3,677 sexually assaulted children
The controversy arose at a time when the Catholic Church had made some progress in recognizing its fault and compensating the victims.
“The Cologne tragedy around the report and the cardinal has somewhat masked this aspect,”
recently regretted the government commissioner for questions of sexual assault, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig.
In 2018, a report commissioned by the German Church revealed that 3,677 children or adolescents had been sexually assaulted by more than a thousand members of the clergy since 1946, most of whom had not been punished.
Without having had access to all the archives, the authors of the study warned that the number of victims was probably higher.
After officially apologizing, the bishops had fixed compensation - deemed insufficient by the victims -
"up to 50,000 euros"
per person, against 5,000 euros so far.
And each diocese has started an additional local investigation under the supervision of a joint commission.
Read also: At least 10,000 victims of child crime in the Church since 1950
The Cologne affair also weakens the chances of modernization of the Church currently under discussion within the framework of a synod.
It is also a question of retaining the faithful, who pay a tax in Germany and help to finance charities in particular.
Members of the Catholic Church, which remains the largest denomination in the country, fell to 22.6 million in 2019, down 2 million from 2010, the year when pedophilia scandals were exposed.
Among the great themes of the synod, viewed with a suspicious eye by Bishop Woelki and the Vatican: celibacy, married priests, a greater place reserved for laity and women.
But any progress will have to receive the blessing of the Pope.
But on Tuesday, its services reaffirmed that homosexuality was "a sin" and confirmed the impossibility for same-sex couples to receive the sacraments of marriage.
This communication is no accident, said Thomas Sternberg, president of the powerful central committee of Catholics, who sees it as a way for Rome to “
disrupt”
the reform process in Germany.
