Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as black box in sexual abuse process

The Freiburg Abuse Report also focuses on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, comments Annette Zoch (Political editor of the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" and writes there about religion and the church.). Their actions in cases of abuse are a black box. It will be interesting to see how they deal with the Zollitsch case.

Whenever a diocese is about to publish an abuse study, these voices are raised: How many more expert reports do we actually need? The fundamental systemic problems are obvious, aren't they?

And yet almost every study, as different as it sometimes is in methodology and approach, produces something new. The Freiburg report not only casts a different light on the role of Robert Zollitsch - the archbishop who successfully campaigned in the early phase after 2010 for the Catholic Church to clarify its own deeds.

It also directs the gaze to Rome: that is where, to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, cases of abuse should actually be reported from 2002 onwards. It is really hard to imagine that the Archdiocese of Freiburg, of all places, home of the President of the German Bishops' Conference until 2014 and one of the German dioceses with the largest membership, did not report a single case of abuse to the Vatican and that the two German Prefects of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, did not notice this. Did the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ask - or would they rather not know? Who actually investigates the actions of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith?

Cathcon: Of equal, if not greater interest, is the situation that has prevailed in Rome during the present Papacy.

But that is not provided for, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith acts in a black box, intransparent and not comprehensible from the outside. This and the recent resignation of child protection expert Hans Zollner from the Pontifical Commission for Child Protection show that the Vatican authorities are obviously completely overwhelmed by the issue. It will now be interesting to see whether, and if so how, the Vatican punishes the misconduct of retired Bishop Zollitsch. Whether Canon Law also applies to bishops - or not.

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