Matthias Katsch, spokesman for the “Eckiger Tisch” initiative for victims of abuse, compares the actions of the Catholic Church in Germany in the current issue of the magazine “Der Spiegel” with organized crime. After the publication of the most recent abuse study from the Archdiocese of Freiburg, he spoke of a “week of truth” for the Catholic Church in Germany.
He criticizes the serious omissions and the concrete cover-up of acts of abuse by former archbishops.
Katsch emphasizes that the bishops and their representatives are no longer trustworthy and calls on the German Bundestag to set up an investigative commission to search all archives in the German dioceses and evaluate the documents. “That demands self-respect,” says Katsch in “Spiegel”.
On April 11, the “Working Group on Power Structures and File Analysis” published an almost 600-page report in which the former Archbishop Robert Zollitsch and his predecessor Oskar Saier were accused of serious omissions and a deliberate cover-up of acts of abuse. According to the report, files in the diocese were hidden or destroyed, reports of abuse were not reported and victims and relatives played no role at all for church officials.
How former Archbishop Robert Zollitsch apparently duped the public and politicians is an expression of “breathtaking impudence,” explains Katsch in “Spiegel”.
Katsch draws parallels between the actions of the Catholic Church and the organized crime of the mafia, where “with obviously high criminal energy and sophistication, sometimes across borders, a powerful institution systematically protects offenders and the judiciary is apparently deliberately deceived”. The bishops and their representatives can no longer be trusted.
