The secular verdict on the 39-year-old from Rosenheim, who is said to have desecrated the Catholic church in nearby Schechen through sexual intercourse in the summer of 2022, is expected to take a few months to come. The man is also facing, among other things, the far more serious criminal charges of intentional bodily harm, threats and fraud before the Traunstein regional court, which recently scheduled further hearing dates until March. His wife, who was also allegedly involved in the church desecration, has now accepted a criminal order from the Rosenheim district court.
As far as the multiple assaults are concerned, prosecutors see the woman as a victim of her husband. When it comes to “disrupting the practice of religion,” however, prosecutors consider her to be the perpetrator herself because the two of them are said to have had sex with each other last summer on and near the altar of the Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary in Schechen, which the man himself documented photographically. The public prosecutors applied for a criminal order against the woman at the Rosenheim district court, which she initially objected to. According to a court spokesman, before a public hearing took place in Rosenheim at the beginning of February, she withdrew her objection and accepted the penalty order. She is therefore considered convicted. The court does not provide any information about the amount of the penalty order.
How the matter can be resolved under canon law remains an open question. The room also states that the altar must be re-blessed with incense and holy water.