The German Catholic Church has been stringing together one scandal after another for years. Not only in Münster, which is not far from the Dutch border, but also in other cities. And that must stop, according to many dioceses themselves.
That is why, at the request of the Diocese of Münster, an investigation was carried out into the abuses within their ‘department.’ The results don’t lie. As mentioned: of 610 people it is certain that they have experienced sexual abuse. And it’s about abuse when they were children.
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The researchers looked at the period from 1945 to 2020. It also showed that the majority of the victims were between 10 and 14 years old. About three quarters were a boy, 25 percent a girl. “The children usually had strong ties to the church. They were, for example, altar boys or girls,” the statement from the University of Münster reads.
‘In reality up to 6000 victims’
And they say: “Due to the stigma surrounding the topic of sexual abuse, it is difficult for many people to tell that they are victims. As a result, we estimate that the real number of victims is ten times higher. That equates to between 5000 and 6000 victims. And that only in the diocese of Münster.”
The university also investigated who was responsible for the abuse. In any case, it concerns 183 priests. These are the people who were guilty of the abuse itself, but there is another category: the people who knew about the abuse, but who consciously did nothing about it and sometimes even kept it quiet on purpose.
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For example, the people who have been in charge of the Diocese of Münster since 1945 are accused of not taking action or taking action much too late. And the action taken was quite questionable. Thus, the majority of the accused priests were merely moved to another diocese, rather than having to resign from their duties.
Paus Benedictus
The University of Münster is not the first to investigate sexual abuse within the German Catholic Church. Last January it turned out that archbishops in Munich also deliberately brushed up reports of sexual abuse. One of them would have been the former Pope Benedict XVI.
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