Up to 15,000 cases of sexual abuse expected in Swiss Catholic Church.
Stefan Loppacher: "Up to 15,000 cases".
Stefan Loppacher, ecclesiastical lawyer, prevention officer and spokesman for the SBK's "Sexual Assault" committee, tells the media. The attitude of certain bishops is "total nonsense". Sex with a woman has long been considered worse than abuse of a boy. He expects up to 15,000 cases of sexual abuse in the church environment.
"For the period of the last good 70 years, one will probably have to assume 10,000 to 15,000 cases that actually happened." This is what Stefan Loppacher said in an interview with the "Boten der Urschweiz". The preliminary study has so far confirmed 1002 cases of abuse in the environment of the Catholic Church. It is generally considered certain that the number will increase. No one has yet dared to make an exact prognosis.
Loppacher knows his stuff
Stefan Loppacher is the first to dare to give a figure. And Loppacher knows what he is talking about. He is not only an expert on ecclesiastical criminal law and prevention officer in the diocese of Chur, but also the executive director of the expert committee "Sexual Assaults in the Church Environment" of the Swiss Bishops' Conference.
Canon law mixes morality and law.
According to Stefan Loppacher, the fact that abuse remained unpunished for a long time is also due to church criminal law. This has led to a mixture of morality and law. Sleeping with a woman was considered worse than the sexual abuse of boys by priests, he said.
"Total b***s***"
The attitude of certain bishops and priests was "of course total nonsense", Loppacher said in an interview with Tamedia published on Friday. Loppacher, who specialises in canon law, heads the expert committee on "Sexual Assaults in the Church Environment" of the Swiss Bishops' Conference. He is also a prevention officer in the diocese of Chur.
Sex with women "real breach of celibacy", abuse of children was seen as less serious.
Sexual acts with boys had been justified by homosexuality and classified as morally reprehensible in the church context. Sex between a man and a woman was considered more serious, said Loppacher. That would be a "real breach of celibacy". Loppacher had sifted through corresponding files.
Self-protection above all
Women are seen as less pure because of biblical and cultic ideas of purity. Until today, this has shaped the sexual morals and the image of women in the church. "Abstruse moral concepts have a direct influence here on the trivialisation of a serious crime," said Loppacher.
For centuries, he says, the Church's criminal law was purely disciplinary. "It was about protecting offenders from themselves for their own salvation and getting them to repent," he said. Calling out wrongs and righting them was not part of it, he said. "Of course, that sounds so naïve that it almost makes one dizzy," the canon lawyer said. But church criminal law is based on moral and theological convictions, he said.
Church puts itself above the state
Church leaders were also used to placing themselves above the state, he said. "The Catholic Church knows no error culture," said Loppacher. From the state's point of view, church law does not exist.
A large number of church employees, however, had only been waiting for these issues to be addressed. In Loppacher's opinion, a change of culture requires the masses. The fact that Swiss church representatives have decided to commission a clarification is evidence of insight.
On Tuesday, the University of Zurich had documented 1002 cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Switzerland since the middle of the 20th century in a study.
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