Sexual abuse drives Catholics out of church, pope says

This video from Germany says about itself:

Catholic Church in Germany releases sex abuse report

24 September 2018

It’s believed to cover a 70 year period and follows various reports of sexual abuse in Germany.

A four-year investigation into the sexual abuse of children in the German Catholic Church is to publish its findings. Our Berlin Correspondent Jessica Saltz gives us more details about this scandal.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Pope: abuse scandals drive people out of the church

The abuse scandals in the Catholic Church shock believers and drive them out of the church. That is what the Pope said today on the last day of his visit to the Baltic states. The church must change if it wants to keep future generations, he said.

The Pope’s statements coincide with a new report on decades of sexual abuse and its cover-up in Germany.

To a large group of young people in Estonia, the Pope said that he knows that many young people feel that the church has nothing to offer them and does not understand their problems. “They are furious about the sexual and economic scandals without clear condemnation, and about the fact that we are not willing to really understand the lives and sensitivities of young people.”

“We ourselves must be converted”, said the Pope. “In order to be able to stand next to you, we have to realize that we have to change a lot.”

Report

With these pronouncements, the Pope recognizes for the first time publicly the failure of the approach to sexual abuse.

Today, a report was published at the German bishops’ conference showing that almost 3700 people in Germany were abused by clergy between 1946 and 2014. More than half were 13 or younger at the time, and nearly a third of them were altar boys.

According to the report, evidence in these cases has been destroyed or manipulated. Many cases have never been brought to justice and abusers have been transferred, without their past having been made known.

Cardinal Marx, as the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, said at the presentation of the report that things are not finished right now, but are just beginning.

“For far too long there have been lies about abuse in the church, looking away and cover-ups, and for all these failures and pain I apologize”, said Marx. “I am ashamed of destroying trust and of the crimes that people have been subjected to by church officials.”