BERLIN — A Roman Catholic archbishop in Germany provided his resignation and two different high-ranking officers had been suspended in the wake of a report that discovered many years of “systematic cover-up” in the church’s dealing with of accusations of sexual abuse by the hands of clergy members.
The 800-page report, analyzing the years 1975 to 2018 on the Archdiocese of Cologne, was launched on Thursday after 5 months of intense investigation. It was essential of the actions of Stefan Hesse, who had labored on the Archdiocese of Cologne and is now the archbishop of Hamburg.
Archbishop Hesse mentioned he would provide to step down. “To prevent damage to the office, of the archbishop or the Diocese of Hamburg, I am offering Pope Francis my resignation and ask him to immediately relieve me of my duties,” he mentioned in an announcement.
The archbishop mentioned that he had all the time sought to behave responsibly in his dealing with of abuse allegations and denied any intention to cover wrongdoing throughout his tenure in Cologne, however mentioned that he would settle for the implications of the findings.
The report discovered no wrongdoing by the present cardinal of Cologne, Rainer Maria Woelki, however an auxiliary bishop serving in the archdiocese and the top of its ecclesiastical courtroom had been accused of appearing improperly.
None of these named had been accused of felony wrongdoing, though a duplicate of the report was despatched to prosecutors in Cologne for assessment. Cardinal Woelki mentioned a duplicate would even be despatched to the Vatican.
“As of today, it is no longer possible to say we had no idea,” Cardinal Woelki mentioned after the discharge of the report — which he had not beforehand seen, however which he mentioned he had been fearing. “I am deeply moved and shamed by this, and I am convinced that for clerics, their actions must have consequences.”
The launch of the report, by Björn Gercke, a lawyer in Cologne, had been eagerly awaited amid rising frustration over Cardinal Woelki’s refusal to make public the outcomes of an earlier investigation by a Munich-based legislation agency into the conduct of church leaders. The same examination by that Munich agency into misconduct in the neighboring Diocese of Aachen was made public.
Germany is basically secular, and fewer than a 3rd of its 82 million inhabitants belong to the Catholic Church. But the church stays a strong establishment, deeply embedded in German tradition and social constructions, particularly in the western area round Cologne. The church has in depth property holdings and runs a number of hospitals, day care facilities and nursing houses that make use of greater than one million folks.
Mr. Gercke’s report accused eight folks, two of whom are useless, in a complete of 75 cases of misconduct by failing to report abuse to the suitable authorities or to adequately shield victims. He pressured that the report centered on how the church had dealt with abuse accusations and never on particular cases of abuse.
Cardinal Woelki’s predecessor, Archbishop Joachim Meisner, who died in 2017, was additionally mentioned to have didn’t act correctly in 24 cases. Archbishop Meisner additionally stored a secret file, titled “Brothers in the Mist,” that included particulars of accusations of sexual misconduct and abuse, the report discovered.
At the identical time, it discovered that church leaders and others answerable for dealing with complaints of abuse didn’t hold correct data or documentation, Kerstin Stirner, a lawyer who labored on the report, mentioned at a information convention in Cologne.
An opaque system existed for many years in which nobody felt accountable, she mentioned.
“It was marked by chaos” and a “lack of responsibility and misunderstanding” that modified solely in 2015, when a construction was established for reporting and dealing with abuse circumstances, Ms. Stirner mentioned.
Mr. Gercke really useful additional strengthening the procedures for reporting abuse and bettering the accuracy of record-keeping as a part of efforts to forestall future misconduct.
He additionally mentioned the church wanted to alter an inner tradition that centered extra on salvaging the establishment’s fame than on defending the victims.
The outcomes of the still-unreleased report by the Munich agency had been to have been offered final March. But after weeks of delaying its launch, Cardinal Woelki mentioned it had issues so grave that it couldn’t be made public. That led to public suspicion that there was one thing to cowl up.
Over the previous 12 months, the cardinal has been broadly criticized over the failure to launch the report, and greater than 12,000 parishioners have both give up the church or made an appointment to take action.
Since 2010, the Bishops’ Conference has run a hotline for abuse, and had a bishop serving as its personal commissioner on the difficulty.
