Stronger together

adminonNovember 10, 2021January 5, 2022Leave a Comment

Poster with the inscription "Ask those affected" (Archive) © Julia Steinbrecht (KNA)

Initiatives of victims of sexual violence in the Catholic Church want to cooperate more closely nationwide. Only if those affected networked better would they have a strong voice in the process of coming to terms with the past, they stressed.

This was stated by the Action Alliance, which is supported by the Corner Table and seven other initiatives, during an online conference on Monday.

The initiatives demanded support from the Catholic Church, for example in contacting victims of abuse or in financing personal exchange and legal advice. There are numerous bureaucratic hurdles in applying for recognition benefits, they said. The church keeps finding excuses for inadequate reappraisal and prevents victims from joining together.

Stakeholder advisory councils are viewed critically

Several spokespersons of initiatives critically dealt with the affected persons' advisory councils founded by dioceses. They served rather to save the reputation of the church. Their members are still determined by dioceses; however, the church cannot be an advocate for the victims, they said.

The initiatives had demanded last week in an open letter also more support from the policy. The ie of coming to terms with, helping and compensating victims of child sexual abuse belongs in parliament, wrote the two resigned members of the victims' advisory council in the archdiocese of Cologne, Patrick Bauer and Karl Haucke, as well as the spokesman for the Cornered Table initiative, Matthias Katsch, in the "Zeit" supplement "Christ Welt".

They demanded the establishment of a truth and justice commission by the parliament, which should accompany "the process of coming to terms with the decades of systematic institutional failure in the churches". "The church can't do it alone," the authors said. Parliament should also clarify what appropriate compensation should look like.

During the spring plenary meeting of the Catholic bishops, which begins on Tuesday and takes place online, the Action Alliance supports the initiative of the Giordano Bruno Foundation, which is present with a church-critical motif float of the carnival float builder Jacques Tilly next to the Cologne Cathedral.

No state commission?

The president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), Thomas Sternberg, doubted on Monday, however, the need for a state commission to deal with abuse. All in all, the Catholic Church is on the right track, he told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper.

"I believe the Aufarbeitungsarbeit of many Catholic dioceses in Germany does not need to hide.In addition to dioceses that have commissioned expert opinions, there are a number of dioceses that have entrusted completely independent teams of scientists with the task of coming to terms with the situation," he explained.

Victims of sexual abuse and members of ECA (Ending Clergy Abuse) demonstrate in Rome © Alessandra Tarantino

Bishops' meeting on abuse in the church has caused disappointment among victims. While Pope Francis ared that the Church would pursue each case with "utmost seriousness," they nevertheless hoped for concrete measures to be taken.

With disappointment, victims have acknowledged the four-day anti-abuse summit at the Vatican. Victims had expected a different ending at the end of Sunday's worldwide meeting – "at least the announcement of the expulsion of various bishops," Francesco Zanardi, spokesman for the Italian victims' association "Rete l'abuso," told the Italian daily "La Repubblica" (Monday).

"Only words instead of deeds"

The names of abuse-covering bishops are known, he said, and he cannot understand what is being waited for. There had been "once again only words instead of deeds". "If the Pope sees the Church as a victim, he should report priests who abuse children to civil courts and demand compensation for the Church," Zanardi said.

A Swiss abuse victim also criticized the outcome of the worldwide meeting of bishops. The concrete actions demanded by Pope Francis at the beginning were lacking in the end, Jean-Marie Furbringer told the "Messaggero" (Monday). "We victims would have liked to know what the Pope is doing already from tomorrow with the bishops who covered up child abuse," he told the Italian daily newspaper.

Demand: along the perpetrators from the priesthood

"Zero tolerance" for child abuse in the Catholic Church must finally be realized, the Swiss said. The victims demanded the removal of perpetrators from the priesthood and likewise bishops guilty of all cover-ups. Transparency is needed; civil society has a right to be informed about cases.

On the Vatican's announcement of new rules against abuse in the Vatican State, Furbringer said, "If it is true that these important documents are already available, why have they not yet been published?" Zanardi commented on the announcement of the new papal decree against abuse, saying the Vatican should start pushing to implement the previous decree.

Some 190 presidents of bishops' conferences, religious leaders from around the world and heads of Vatican agencies had been discussing abuse cases and child protection in the Catholic Church from Thursday to Sunday at the Vatican. Some abuse victims reported at the meeting and put forward their demands. Pope Francis had for the first time convened a church summit on dealing with abuse.

A tweet about "Nafris" had brought criticism to Cologne police after the recent New Year's Eve incident. Two weeks later, the question now arises whether there were so many North Africans among the young men at the main train station at all.

"At the HBF several hundred Nafris are examined at present. Info to follow." This is what the Cologne police tweeted on New Year's Eve. The abbreviation "Nafri" for North Africans was criticized as pejorative the very next day. Two weeks later, the question now arises: were the majority of the aggressive young men not North Africans at all?

Police chief Jurgen Mathies had distanced himself from the public use of the term "Nafris" even on New Year's Day. At the same time, he said that the young men whom the police had checked at the main station were predominantly North Africans.

No clear picture

Two weeks later, a less clear picture now emerges. On Friday, the police gave an interim status of their investigations. According to them, on New Year's Eve, a total of about "2000 North African or Arab-looking young men" came to the main train station and the Deutz train station. In 674 cases, he said, we now have secure personal data, and in 425 cases we can say something about nationality. Of those 425, 99 were Iraqis, 94 Syrians, 48 Afghans and 46 Germans. Only 17 were Moroccans and 13 Algerians. The police did not want to name the remaining nationalities.

After the new figures had caused quite a stir, the police ied a press release in the afternoon: "The absolute representation of nationalities in the media is not correct," they clarified. In many cases doubts remained about citizenship. It is well known that North Africans often pretend to be war refugees from Syria in order to increase their chances of obtaining asylum. "It can therefore not be ruled out that among the 425 people there is still a larger number of North African young men."

But even if this should be the case, in any case it can be said that the proportion of North Africans was smaller than amed. It was not exclusively about the notorious "Nafris". This is the term used internally by the Cologne police to describe North Africans who have already attracted attention through criminal acts on several occasions. For years, young men from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia have been a major problem around Cologne's main train station and cathedral. Many of them have specialized in stealing from tourists. The suspects of the disastrous New Year's Eve 2015/16 with numerous sexual assaults on women and mass cell phone thefts were also predominantly North Africans.

Aggressive young men

The fact that the police were quick to speak of North Africans after the most recent New Year's Eve may also have had something to do with the fact that they did not want to repeat the mistakes of the previous year. At the time, police had initially kept a low profile on the nationality of the suspects – and had been heavily criticized for that very fact.

Ultimately, however, nationality is not the decisive factor, argued police spokesman Wolfgang Baldes on Friday. For the police, she said, something else was important: The men, who had arrived in large groups at the main train station before midnight, were "young, aggressive and intoxicated". According to this criterion they had been examined. The result, he said, was a very successful operation – there were only a few reports that night.

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