GERMANY
Deutsche Welle
It was supposed to provide a great deal of enlightenment on the Catholic Church’s abuse scandal. But now, researchers and bishops are parting ways after a bitter disagreement over a report on the affair.
The goal was clear: the abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church to its core since the beginning of 2010, was supposed to be addressed seamlessly. The church leadership wanted to investigate the abuse cases in detail in which priests and others abused young people – going back as far as 1945. To carry out the study seriously and objectively, the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) brought in the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony (KFN). The scientists from Hanover were to be granted access to all personnel records of the past decade in all 27 dioceses.
Researcher Christian Pfeiffer accused the Church of interference
But there is now disagreement between the KFN and the DBK. The bishops canceled the contracts with the Institute. “The trust was shattered,” official sources said. It was impossible to think of continuing this work. On the other hand, KFN head Christian Pfeiffer spoke of censorship and the hindrance of his work: “The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising clearly demanded that all texts must be submitted to them for approval, and they made it clear to us that they also had the right to prohibit the publication of texts, ” Pfeiffer told German public radio.
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