Power Structures And File Analysis

Last Tuesday: Carriage from the Cologne carnival procession of 2023 in
front of the Freiburg Minster church: #Judgements instead of expert reports
©evangelisch.de

Not only the Catholics of the Archdiocese of Freiburg are shocked.

©BZ

Last Tuesday, retired judge Eugen Endress and former prosecutor Edgar Villwock presented the long-awaited 582-page final report* of their independent working group "Machtstrukturen und Aktenanalyse."

*Initially to be published in October 2020

According to the report, 190 clergymen abused 442 boys and girls from 1946 to 2014 in the Archdiocese of Freiburg. After the report was completed, new abuse cases came forward, so 552 victims and 253 clerical defendants are currently known. However, experts estimate that the number of unreported cases is significantly higher.

There are reports from other archdioceses in Germany that contain similar information. What makes the situation in Freiburg particularly tragic, however, is that for decades the archdiocese systematically covered up sexual assaults on dependent youths.

Archbishops Oskar Saier and Robert Zollitsch (©BZ)

Former Archbishop and President of the German Bishops' Conference from February 2008 to March 2014, Robert Zollitsch, is mainly blamed in the report. He completely ignored canon law concerning abuse cases during his tenure in Freiburg from 2003 to 2013. Neither did he initiate mandatory preliminary investigations, as required by ecclesiastical law and guidelines, nor did he report even a single case of child abuse to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome when suspicions were substantiated. While violations of celibacy by clergy were punished, the abuse of children and adolescents was not punished under canon law.

Zollitsch transferred suspected perpetrators at short notice to another parish, preferably further away or, if possible due to age, to retirement, thus covering up suspected abusers.

Superiors at the new place of work were not informed of the actual reasons for the transfer. Accordingly, no written instructions were passed on, such as prohibitions on contact with children and adolescents. Thus, there was also no internal church control system for offenders at risk of recidivism.

Zollitsch's predecessor, Archbishop Oskar Saier, was also without empathy for those affected by abuse. He was fixated solely on "his" priests and their reputation or the undisturbed image of the Church. Saier refused without exception to inform the state prosecuting authority, a cover-up attitude probably with "consensual action" of his then secretary Zollitsch.

It was particularly cynical that Archbishop Zollitsch sent abusers in his diocese a letter of thanks and congratulations on solemn occasions, such as round birthdays or priestly anniversaries.

Zollitsch wrote to a convicted cleric in one case: "You have allowed yourself to be called by the Lord and were allowed to experience how beneficial your work as a priest became. With you, I thank the Lord for what he has accomplished through you."

In another case, Zollitsch reportedly paid tribute to a priest sentenced to several years in prison for multiple sexual cases of abuse of altar boys. On the occasion of his retirement, the archbishop wrote, "Your good skill in dealing with children and young people benefited youth work, especially altar boy work."

The 84-year-old Zollitsch, who recently moved from Freiburg to a senior citizens' residence in Mannheim, had his legal spokesman say, "Out of consideration for those affected by sexual violence and out of respect for a necessary and complete reappraisal, the former Archbishop of Freiburg has imposed silence on himself."

The latest developments: Zollitsch renounced all decorations, such as the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Merit), and also does not want to be buried in the bishop's crypt of the Freiburg Minster. This does not undo the suffering of the victims.

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