According to a study published Monday, at least 600 young people have been documented as having been assaulted by Catholic priests in the German diocese of Muenster, but the true number of victims might be ten times greater. As per the analysis by the University of Muenster, the diocese has formal records on 610 abuse victims, which is almost one-third higher than a previous study from 2018. However, historian Natalie Powroznik, who was engaged in the study, believes the real number of victims is far higher, with ‘about 5,000 to 6,000 afflicted girls and boys’ throughout the diocese.
According to the research, at least 5,700 individual acts of sexual abuse have been committed by a total of 196 clerics, including 183 priests. Only 5% of the clerics implicated were discovered to be chronic offenders who had victimized more than ten persons, and only 10% had suffered any judicial penalties. During the zenith of the abuse in the 1960s and 1970s, the diocese averaged two instances each week.
Three out of every four victims were boys, the bulk of whom were between the ages of 10 and 14, with many of the crimes committed against altar boys or in children’s and youth camps. The study found that victims who survived into adulthood experienced significant psychological repercussions, including sadness and suicidal ideation, with evidence of attempted suicide in 27 cases.
Widespread abuse;
Felix Genn, the bishop of Muenster, is scheduled to make a detailed remark on the findings on Friday. The writers accuse Genn, who has served as Bishop of Muenster since 2009, of failing to prosecute abusers. On Monday, Genn stated that he would ‘naturally accept responsibility for the mistakes I made in dealing with sexual assault’.
In recent years, Germany’s Catholic Church has been rocked by a series of studies exposing rampant priest abuse of minors. According to a 2018 report commissioned by the German Bishops’ Conference, 1,670 pastors in the nation perpetrated some sort of sexual assault against 3,677 kids between 1946 and 2014. However, the true number of casualties is thought to be much higher.
In January, a probe into the diocese of Munich and Freising discovered evidence of sexually abusive behavior in 235 persons studied, including 173 priests, with at least 497 victims. The audit also revealed that former Pope Benedict XVI willfully neglected to take action to stop four priests suspected of child sex abuse in the 1980s, while he was archbishop of Munich. Another investigation issued last year revealed the extent of abuse committed by priests in Germany’s top diocese of Cologne.
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