A little while ago, Cardinal Woelki from Cologne came under fire for preventing the publication of a study on abuse in his diocese. Since then, dates for leaving the church have been booked out for weeks. The first figures are now available for a new report to be published in March.
So far, there has been talk of 135 victims who experienced abuse by clergy in the Archdiocese of Cologne between 1946 and 2015. Der Spiegel now reports in advance on a study that Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki had commissioned. This was created by the expert Björn Gercke. Among other things, he made a name for himself as a defender of managers and board members in cum-ex proceedings.
Gercke announced to the Kölnische Rundschau that “we [Anm. d. Redaktion: die Gutachter:innen] Names of those responsible and systematic causes will be named, both without compromise within the scope of what is legally possible. “
The previous report by a Munich law firm had not been published. The so-called “Munich report” shows deficiencies in the law of expression, such as speculation or accusation without evidence. According to the expert, the new report from Cologne should, however, be far more extensive and also come to more critical results than the one from Munich. The “case O.”, which gained notoriety in the past few weeks, was not described in the Munich report, but in the new one.
It has already become public that the number of known victims and perpetrators is increasing dramatically with the new report. Since 1975 there has been talk of 230 suspects and 270 victims, according to the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. However, these figures only become meaningful in a factual context.
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