The order has asked anyone abused in Jesuit schools across Germany to come forward. So far, three priests are accused of systematic sexual abuse. The Catholic Church hierarchy has been quick to condemn the abuse, and promised to take action.
At the center of the allegations is Canisius College in Berlin. On January 28, the college said there had been systematic abuse of pupils by three Jesuit priests in the 1970s and 1980s. So far, 40 cases are known, with new victims coming forward each day, after the Jesuit leadership urged them to do so.
The priests who now stand accused have also worked at Jesuit-run secondary schools in Hamburg, Bonn, and the Black Forest, and in parishes in Lower Saxony. Therefore, Klaus Mertes, the current director of Canisius College, told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine that he expected the current allegations to be the “tip of the iceberg.”
On February 8, the director of Aloisius College in Bonn, Theo Schneider, resigned after accusations that he knew about the abuse.
The bishop of Trier, Stephan Ackermann, chairperson of the German Catholic Justice and Peace Committee, told his local newspaper, Trierischer Volksfreund, on February 11, “The events are shocking and disastrous for the reputation and the credibility of the church.” He added, “When it comes to child abuse, there can be no playing down or cover up.”
Ackermann’s statement is in step with other high-ranking German Catholic clergy, who last weekend in church services repented and asked for forgiveness for the many incidents of sexual abuse by their clergy and lay people. Still, the Diocese of Trier claimed it had had no reported cases of sexual abuse since 1995.
“When a Catholic priest, representing an institution with such high moral notions, commits sexual abuse, this leads to a breach that cannot be rectified,” Provost Martin Tenge, the regional deacon of the Diocese of Hanover, told his congregation in a Sunday service in the Hanoverian Basilica.
In all Sunday services in the Diocese of Hanover, a statement from the diocesan bishop, Norbert Trelle, was read out in which he promised to get to the root of the problem. “The whole institution is at fault because it imparted a mentality of, ‘Please do not talk about it’,” Tenge wrote. In Berlin Cathedral, the victims of the sexual abuse were also remembered.
Der Spiegel ran the sex scandal as its cover story on February 8 under the headline, “The hypocrites: the Catholic Church and sex”. The magazine said it had conducted a survey the preceding week, and found that close to 100 clergy and lay people had been suspected of sexual abuse in Germany’s 27 Catholic dioceses since 1995.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference secretary, Hans Langendoerfer, told Der Spiegel, “We want clarification. We would like to address the subject openly. The revelations show a dark chapter in the church that horrifies me.”
The Catholic Church hierarchy has said it will deal with the scandal at a February 22 meeting of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference. The chairperson of the conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, has so far not acceded to any requests for interviews.
The Catholic Church in Austria, the United States, Australia, the Philippines, and Ireland has faced similar allegations regarding sexual abuse by church officials in recent times.
