Can a man who was molested by a priest as a child be entitled to compensation? And if so how much? That’s why there is a legal dispute before the district court of Traunstein. That has now decided how to proceed.
In the Traunstein compensation process against the deceased Pope Benedict XVI. as well as a former Catholic pastor and the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising commissioned a psychiatric report. This is intended to clarify the extent to which the sexual abuse by the then pastor of Garching an der Alz was the cause of the later mental illness and the drug and alcohol addiction of the plaintiff.
This demands from the Archdiocese of Munich at least 300,000 euros in damages for abuse suffered as an altar boy in the mid-1990s. The church leaders had continued to use the pastor, who originally came from the diocese of Essen, as a convicted and convicted abuser in pastoral care and sent him to Garching. As the district court also decided and announced on Friday, the plaintiff himself is to be heard at the next hearing on September 12.
On the first day of the hearing in June, the lawyer for the archdiocese also spoke of a fundamental right to compensation. However, the amount is unclear. The trial of former Pope Benedict XVI. the regional court separated after his death at the end of last year, because no heirs could be identified so far against whom any claims for damages would have to be directed. Among other things, Benedict was involved in the case of the pastor during his time as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome.