New and shocking report on abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising

How often was abuse investigated? Eisenreich presents new report

Since the publication of the abuse report for the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising at the beginning of the year, Georg Eisenreich has already commented on it several times - among others during a plenary session in the Bavarian Parliament. 

Georg Eisenreich has already spoken out several times since the publication of the abuse report for the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising at the beginning of the year - including during a Plenary Session in the Bavarian Parliament.

Bavaria's Minister of Justice has had the number of preliminary proceedings involving sexual offences considered. For victims, the findings are likely to sound bitter.

Bavaria's Minister of Justice, Georg Eisenreich (CSU), has dealt with the issue of "abuse cases in the Catholic Church" in what is now the second report to the State Parliament. The report, which was to be sent to Members of Parliament on Tuesday, has been made available to our editorial office. Its content: figures and details on preliminary proceedings for sexual abuse that were initiated independently of expert opinions. They have emerged from a survey of Public Prosecutors' Offices. Since investigations and criminal proceedings for sexual abuse in the area of the churches are not recorded separately in statistics, it required extensive research. The main files reviewed were those from the period from January 2017 to June 2022.

First report on criminal consequences triggered criticism

The first Eisenreich report from two months ago, on the other hand, was mainly about the two abuse reports by the law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl for the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, in which church files since 1945 were evaluated. According to the Minister of Justice, the conclusion regarding the criminal law consequences was that more than 800 cases were examined by the Public Prosecutor's Office. In 243 of these cases, clerics were the suspects - there was a conviction in only one case.

Eisenreich also admitted that the first Munich abuse report was only available to the Public Prosecutor's Office in May 2019 - largely "unredacted", as he now explains. However, the report was presented in December 2010; it was not published until today for "data protection reasons". In an interview with our editors, Eisenreich explained: "From today's perspective, it should have been requested earlier. At the same time, he stressed that prosecutable sexual offences were therefore not time-barred. The Greens, SPD and FDP in the state parliament reacted with criticism and indignation.

Eisenreich: Expert opinions and notifications of the churches about suspected cases played a subordinate role

In his second, 21-page report to the state parliament - at the request of the Greens and based on a written question by FDP MPs, Matthias Fischbach and Martin Hagen - Eisenreich now broadens the perspective. Expert opinions played a central role above all for the Church's coming to terms with the past and for the social debate, but for the prosecution of the direct perpetrators they had only "very limited significance". "In practice, the initial suspicion of abuse offences in the ecclesiastical sphere, which is necessary for criminal prosecution, results less from the studies commissioned by the church, which are the focus of media reporting but follows primarily from reports by the aggrieved parties or third parties," he explains.

The churches' reports of suspected cases also play a subordinate role - because in many cases "numerous accused persons have died and numerous offences are time-barred" and because "the churches assume an understanding of abuse that also includes unpunished transgressions".

This must sound bitter to the ears of victims. And yet it merely illustrates what studies and expert reports have repeatedly pointed out: In coming to terms with cases of abuse in the ranks of the churches, which to a large extent go back decades, it is - in the year 2022 - more about moral standards, less about what is (still) justiciable.

This is what Georg Eisenreich's new report on abuse cases in the Catholic Church says

In total, Georg Eisenreich lists the following:

134 preliminary proceedings were initiated in the period studied as a result of reports by the churches. They led to three convictions; 66 preliminary proceedings were initiated as a result of reports by aggrieved parties or third parties (17 convictions);

29 were initiated for "other reasons" such as "ex officio investigations" (nine convictions).

Of the 30 convictions - including the one resulting from an expert opinion - 24 relate to the Catholic Church and six to the Protestant Church. For the Protestant Church, "there have been no abuse studies so far and accordingly no proceedings resulting from them", Eisenreich states. The appendix to his report, which deals with the Protestant Church, is just under one and a half pages long and lists 23 (suspected) cases throughout Bavaria. The list for the Catholic Church in the Higher Regional Court district of Munich, which includes Augsburg, Ingolstadt and Kempten, alone is almost 18 pages long.

The report also states that the state government is examining whether it should commission a scientific dark field study "on abuse in the church environment specifically for Bavaria".

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