The man has actually never shied away from appearances. Not as a passionate amateur musician and not in his former job as a Catholic community officer. For example, when something had to be blessed again, when he was on stage with the altar boy band or in the clergyman’s white robes at the altar during the Liturgy of the Word. At this appearance in the district court in Traunstein, Upper Bavaria, the now 37-year-old is dressed in dark, he has turned up the collar of his jacket, a scarf pulled far under the baseball cap covers his head, a mouthguard hides his face. The public prosecutor’s office accuses him of sexual abuse of a ward during his time as a youth pastor in a Rosenheim parish. Later, according to the indictment, he is said to have raped the young woman twice.
In cases like these, the church always seems to be in the dock, which for so long has strictly protected its staff against all allegations of abuse and from secular criminal prosecution. Many things have long been statute-barred under criminal law, which is why only the civil action of an alleged victim of abuse can be heard right here in the district court of Traunstein in June of this year. The former altar boy can at most get compensation from his former pastor and his former superiors in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, including Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. or now after his death by his possible heirs.
In 2020, the young woman from Rosenheim, whose rape the former municipal officer admits to in court, initially turned to one of the “independent contacts” who the archdiocese has now named for such cases. The story began a while ago. In the 2015/2016 school year, the current defendant, as a youth pastor, offered to help the then 16-year-old, who had been suffering from depression for years. They would meet in the parish band room or go for walks, and eventually it turned into a sexual relationship. However, the Youth Protection Chamber of the Regional Court avowedly doubts that the young woman could have been ordered to protect the pastor, who was married then and is still married, and that she could have been entrusted in a strictly legal sense, as the indictment suggests. And later, when she was actually entrusted to him during the holiday camp and the group trip, the intimate contact had already existed.
Because the victim’s memories of a possible second rape are more than vague due to the medication, the chamber, the defense attorney, the public prosecutor and also the victim’s attorney come to the common conclusion right at the beginning of the trial in a legal discussion behind closed doors that all other allegations drop and focus on a rape in a Munich hotel. This happened two years after the young woman revealed herself to her parents and the parish officer had changed parishes and later also diocese. The relationship, however, both resumed. The accused had apparently previously announced what was to happen to her in that hotel room via mobile phone chat to the now adult student. But she thought it might not be that bad. This is what the psychological expert reports from her conversation with the woman.
The victim, who did not come to the trial because of a hospital stay and certified inability to stand trial, does not have to testify himself, because the accused accepts the deal of the lawyers from the legal talks. He confesses to one rape, pays the woman 10,000 euros in perpetrator-victim compensation and also assures that he is “very sorry” about everything. In return, according to the presiding judge’s view of the verdict, he can expect one and a half to two years in prison and, above all, that this sentence will be suspended on probation.
In fact, at least in this case, the processes on the part of the church have apparently proven their worth. If a victim who reveals himself to him does not want to report himself, the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising demands the express assurance that he should not report the crime either. This case, however, went to the public prosecutor’s office and is now before the court. At the same time, the archdiocese kept the Bavarian diocese, in which the parish officer was working in the meantime and which first released him and then fired him, up to date. The district court plans to announce its verdict next week.