Anne Will (ARD): After "Balance of Horrors", Bishop wants to sit out the abuse scandal

In her ARD talk, Anne Will discusses omissions in the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. And about general system failure.

Berlin – “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” says the Ten Commandments. And if the Catholic Church has its way, you should stick to them. However, it becomes difficult when the employees themselves take the rules lightly. This is what happened to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who suddenly remembered that he had attended a meeting about a priest who had become conspicuous about the sexual abuse of children. But please don’t be angry, it didn’t happen on purpose.

A mockery of those affected. Which is why, according to Matthias Katsch at Anne Will (ARD), co-founder and spokesman for the “Eckiger Tisch” initiative for those affected, after “this summary of the horror” the most important question should not be who saves the church, but who saves those affected. And it’s definitely not the bishops who caused “this disaster”. That is why Katsch calls loud and clear for their resignation.

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Georg Bätzing, Bishop of Limburg and Chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, sees things differently on ARD with Anne Will, of course. He considers Cardinal Marx’s decision to remain in office to be “quite right”. He calls his offer of resignation, which was rejected by Pope Francis, a “strong sign” and an attempt “to take responsibility for the church’s systemic failures, regardless of whether there was personal responsibility, personal guilt.” Only strange that in The MHG study on the subject of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany states that in at least two cases this Cardinal Marx suffered from personal leadership failure.

Anne Will (ARD): The Catholic Church – an ailing system

Moderator Anne Will agrees and asks Bishop Bätzing how Marx now intends to take on responsibility. By staying at his fat post within the ailing system and from there, as Bätzing preaches, “designing” the system change. Another slap in the face for those affected. It doesn’t do them any good either if the former Pope Benedict, as Bätzing would like, openly says that he is guilty.

Fortunately, the SPD politician and lawyer Ingrid Matthäus-Meier sees it the same way. Instead of “rhetoric of dismay” she wants to know what will happen in the next few weeks: will the cases be handed over to the public prosecutor? When will the archives be opened so that no files can be destroyed? And what about the financial compensation for those affected?

Matthäus-Meier loudly and clearly calls for a state commission of inquiry at Anne Will (ARD). And without church representatives and interference from church employees. Because the previous independent experts who were entrusted with the work-up by the Roman Catholic Church were – no wonder – and luckily Deutschlandfunk editor Christiane Florin also points this out, convened by the church.

But what does politics actually do? Why is the pope still being greeted with applause in the Bundestag in 2011 instead of being confronted with the abuse cases? And why do the Christian churches actually still get about 548 million euros in state benefits in addition to the church tax income as compensation for church property, which – watch out! – were expropriated at the beginning of the 19th century?

Discussion about cases of abuse in the Catholic Church with Anne Will (ARD)

In any case, with so much money flowing into the account every year, the Catholic Church should have enough money available to pay decent and high compensation to the people who have become victims of abuse.

At the end of the program, Anne Will asks journalist Christiane Florin on ARD if she is going to leave the church? A question that many Catholics are asking themselves right now. If you are serious about charity, you can only answer it with a yes. (Bettina Schuler)

Rubriklistenbild: © Screenshot ARD