The eagerly awaited report on the handling of those responsible for cases of sexual violence in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising has been delayed. The investigation will be presented in the third calendar week, i.e. between January 17 and 21, 2022, announced the Munich law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) on Wednesday in Munich. The exact date and location of the press conference will be announced.
The release was originally expected this summer. According to the lawyers, this “slight delay” is due to “the recent past that we have gained new knowledge which must be subjected to an intensive review in the short term.” The report will be published on the firm’s homepage. The representatives of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising would not be informed of the results until they were published.
The report is expected to attract a lot of international attention. Because the investigation period from 1949 to 2019 also includes the term of office of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, today’s Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. He was Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982. Even if Ratzinger’s term of office was short, a priest was transferred from Essen who was suspected of sexual abuse there and who was subsequently also accused of abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich.
Cardinal Julius Döpfner, Ratzinger’s predecessor in office, and Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, who was Archbishop of Munich from 1982 to 2008, are other prominent persons in charge of the study. He was followed by today’s archbishop, Cardinal Reinhard Marx.
In 2010 the law firm carried out an initial investigation
According to the WSW law firm, the task is to “examine all cases of sexual abuse with regard to the correctness and appropriateness of the handling of the case”. On this basis, systemic causes and deficits should be named which “from our point of view have favored sexual abuse. Furthermore, if necessary and as far as legally possible, those representatives of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising are to be named who, in our opinion, may be faulty or acted inappropriately in relation to the treatment of sexual abuse cases, “said WSW.
In December 2010, the law firm had already carried out an investigation for the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, but at that time only Archbishop Marx and the then Vicar General Peter Beer were able to read the entire text. In addition to an expert opinion for the Diocese of Aachen, WSW had also prepared the first abuse report for the Archdiocese of Cologne, which was then withdrawn by Archbishop Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki because of alleged methodological deficiencies and problems with the law of expression.
Only after massive public pressure did the Archdiocese of Cologne grant access to the WSW report from time to time; it has not yet been published in full. Dealing with the report had triggered an unprecedented crisis of confidence in Cologne. The Archdiocese of Cologne commissioned the Cologne criminal lawyer Björn Gercke with a new report, which was also published. Pope Francis left all bishops charged in this report in office.