More than a year ago, the Catholic German Bishops' Conference reached a joint declaration in the fight against sexual abuse.
But implementation is still a long way off.
Bonn - The commissions to deal with sexual abuse in the Catholic dioceses in Germany are only slowly getting going.
According to a statement by the German Bishops' Conference (DBK) on Friday, the Federal Government's Abuse Commissioner, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig, assumes that “commissions and structures for the participation of those affected will only be set up by the end of the year in all dioceses”.
But he is confident - "even if it was and is a long and not always easy path".
More than a year after a corresponding agreement with the abuse officer, there is now an independent commission, according to DBK, "in most dioceses" - but not yet in all of them.
In 13, the establishment of the commissions is “largely or completely completed”.
For the Catholic reform movement “We are Church” this is a disappointment: “With all understanding for the difficulties of coming to terms with sexual abuse together with those affected and also in view of the Corona situation, it is disappointing,” said spokesman Christian Weisner of the German Press Agency .
"This will again put the patience of the many victims of sexual violence to the test."
Many victims have long been waiting to be dealt with
The long-delayed processing is dragging on and on, he criticized.
"The external impact of this patchwork of church activities is also fatal."
Individual dioceses have agreed special ways with Rörig, announced the DBK.
So far, an advisory board for those affected has only been set up in ten dioceses or is about to be set up.
Five dioceses want to rely on “alternative forms of participation”.
“The diocesan commission has been constituted and has started work,” says a list that the DBK published on Friday for all Bavarian dioceses as well as in Mainz, Speyer and Trier.
The Trier bishop and DBK abuse officer Stephan Ackermann nevertheless sees "great progress" - especially when the general conditions are difficult due to the pandemic.
"Under construction" is the status in many other dioceses - or "diocesan commission largely occupied".
Regarding the diocese of Paderborn it says: "Statute in progress", "Request for the nomination of commissioners is available from the NRW state government".
Regarding the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart: “The commission is being set up.
People have not yet been appointed, but we have a firm eye on them. "
The dioceses of Berlin, Dresden-Meißen and Görlitz want to set up a joint, supra-diocesan commission - as do Hildesheim, Hamburg and Osnabrück.
Commissions should not only collect case numbers
Around a year ago, the Permanent Council of the German Bishops' Conference (DBK) agreed on a “Joint Declaration on Binding Criteria and Standards for an Independent Approach to Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church in Germany” and decided to set up independent reappraisal commissions in all 27 dioceses .
At the time, Rörig spoke of a "historic decision".
The commissions should not only collect the number of cases of sexual abuse, but also examine how victims and perpetrators were dealt with.
In addition, they should work out whether structures within the respective diocese have "enabled or facilitated sexual abuse or made its detection more difficult," as a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising recently said.
"This joint declaration is the decisive basis for a transparent processing and exemplary for other social actors", Rörig said after the agreement was signed.
Ackermann emphasized at the time: "The processing processes that are initiated with the text signed today are part of the institutional responsibility that the bishops and dioceses assume for injustices committed."
The Jesuit priest Klaus Mertes called this way wrong in a contribution for the “Herder Korrespondenz” and the negotiations between the DBK and Rörig called a “ping-pong game for years”.
Education delayed for years?
In 2018, the church made the so-called MHG study and with it shocking figures on sexual abuse public.
The study was criticized, among other things, because the scientists did not have direct access to the personnel files.
The individual commissions should basically iron out deficits from the study and also reveal who from the top of the church could possibly have covered perpetrators.
From the point of view of Rosi Mittermeier, founding member of the Sauerteig Initiative from Garching an der Alz in Upper Bavaria, the commissions at the diocese level are not enough anyway.
"The real work has to happen on site - with the people and their worries."
The Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx is expected in Garching on Saturday. There he wants to speak to the initiative and other parishioners about the case of the former parish priest, who became known in 2010 and who was deployed there for around 20 years, although he had previously been convicted of child sexual abuse in another parish. After being transferred to Garching, he is said to have abused other children there. dpa