Abuse and Mistreatment in the Church (icon image) Photo: dpa/picture alliance
From BZ/dpa
In the Archdiocese of Berlin of the Catholic Church there are new allegations of sexualized violence against children, young people and those under protection.
Last year, 13 new reports were received with allegations against clerics, members of religious orders or employees in church service, five of them on “current issues”, the archdiocese reported on Friday. One situation was six years ago, the others more than 20 years.
In 2022, two “preliminary canonical proceedings” were initiated, it said in a statement. As a spokesman explained, the diocese also reports all allegations to the public prosecutor’s office. However, the responsible public prosecutor’s offices in Berlin, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania have not initiated any investigations into the “currently reported facts”. The spokesman did not give any details. The public prosecutor’s office had discontinued the proceedings for the long-past allegations due to the statute of limitations or the death of the accused.
According to the Archdiocese for 2022, only one cleric named in the allegations was not previously known as a suspect of sexualised violence. “This accused cleric has already passed away,” the statement said. The other accused clerics were already known through past reports from other affected people. The spokesman gave no details on this either.
The Independent Commission for Recognition Services awarded and paid out a total of 399,000 euros to those affected last year. A total of ten new applications for recognition of suffering were made, including three initial applications, four confirmatory applications and three other applications. According to the information, the Archdiocese has recorded a total of 125 suspected cases of sexualised violence since 2002. The allegations go back to 1947.