“We must do everything to ensure that this scandal is processed.” Cologne’s Archbishop Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki told the SZ on February 17, 2020. And another small sensation announced: “We are now having all the files available to us processed independently by a Munich law firm. This law firm will present its results in a press conference on March 12. I too will only find out about these results there.”
Woelki had commissioned the Westpfahl Spilker Wastl law firm – the same law firm that has now also written the abuse report for the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. Two leading heads of the Munich law firm WSW are Marion Westpfahl, a former public prosecutor and judge, and Ulrich Wastl, specialist lawyer for banking and capital markets law. The law firm has attracted attention for years primarily because of its educational work on behalf of the Catholic Church; the first report on abuse for the Archdiocese of Munich, completed in 2010, came from her.
The Archdiocese of Cologne only made the report public after massive pressure
The lawyers have experienced that enlighteners often make themselves unpopular. The press conference on the results of the investigation announced by Archbishop Woelki of Cologne was postponed and canceled entirely at the end of 2020. The Munich chancellery, the Archdiocese of Cologne said, had “repeatedly failed in their promise to achieve a comprehensive review of the events and personal responsibilities”.
Instead, Woelki commissioned the Cologne criminal lawyer Björn Gercke with a new report, which he presented in March 2021. With his actions, Woelki triggered an unprecedented crisis of confidence in the Archdiocese of Cologne. But not because the new report would have been more favorable – the Gercke report led to the dismissal of the Cologne official and the suspension of two auxiliary bishops.
No, Woelki had gotten the approval for the rejection of the first report from the advisory board for those affected, without the people affected even knowing the results of the WSW law firm. Former advisory councils for those affected then spoke of being taken by surprise, instrumentalized and re-traumatized by Woelki. Woelki is currently on a sabbatical granted by the Pope, from which he intends to return in early March.
Lawyer Wastl called the behavior of the archdiocese a “violent attack”. time-Interview. After months of expert disputes and massive public pressure, the Archdiocese of Cologne finally made the WSW report available to a small circle, including the SZ.
Critics felt that the fact that WSW took the side of those affected was too judgmental
The biggest difference between the two reports was the perspective: Björn Gercke systematically examined where and how leading personalities of the archdiocese had violated the applicable rules. WSW argued primarily from the perspective of those affected and related the actions of those responsible to their church self-image. While those affected in particular praised the clear partisanship, critics found it too judgmental.
The law firm WSW not only investigated sexual abuse in the church, but also church finances. In 2015, for example, the Bishop of Eichstätt, Gregor Maria Hanke, ordered the books of his church district to be checked according to professional standards as part of the church’s “transparency offensive”.
The WSW law firm then encountered a number of inconsistencies in investments in the USA, whereupon the diocese filed a criminal complaint with the Munich II public prosecutor’s office. The financial scandal not only disclosed suspected criminal activities and financial damage in the millions, but also an outdated organizational structure with overstrained supervisory bodies.
Especially in the church apparatus, many were outraged that Hanke had brought the law firm WSW on board and thus made the serious omissions public. But Hanke felt he couldn’t get his organization and its finances under control without the help of outside lawyers and accountants. “People here are suspicious of everything that comes from outside,” Hanke told the SZ at the time, “I sometimes have the impression that people prefer to work it out among themselves. According to the motto: We know each other, so we don’t need any procedural rules. “