After the presentation of an expert report on sexual violence against children and young people in the Catholic Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, registry offices in Bavaria have to prepare for a flood of people leaving the church. According to the district administration department (KVR), around 650 appointments for people to leave the church have been booked in Munich alone since the report was published last Thursday. That is significantly more than twice as many as would normally have been expected, as a KVR spokesman said.
The cities of Regensburg, Ingolstadt and Würzburg are also reacting and expanding their capacities. In Würzburg, 22 additional appointments per week are to be offered from February 1st. Since Thursday, 50 requests have been received there about leaving the church – five times as many as in the same period in 2021. A total of 109 people left the church there this year. 70 of them were Catholic. In Ingolstadt, all dates for leaving the church are fully booked until mid-March. However, the demand is so great that “the registry office will foreseeably create additional appointment capacities,” as a spokesman said.
In Regensburg, the registry office wants to “expand the range of appointments” from February. According to a city spokesman, 21 people have left the church in Bamberg since January 21, the day after the study was presented, 17 of them Catholics. In total, there have already been 83 exits there in January 2022, 71 of them Catholic. “This is also significantly more than in previous years,” said the spokesman. In Nuremberg, appointments must be booked two weeks in advance. Anyone leaving the church there this week has booked the appointment before the report is presented. So far this year, the total number of Catholics and Protestants leaving the church there has already reached 371. That is 73 percent more than last year as of January 25.
The one commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising itself Report by the law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) Concludes that cases of sexual abuse in the diocese have not been adequately addressed for decades; it accuses the cardinals and former archbishops Friedrich Wetter and Joseph Ratzinger as well as the current one, Reinhard Marx, of misconduct. The experts speak of at least 497 victims and 235 alleged perpetrators, but assume that there are significantly more unreported cases.