Emmanuel Thomas, with DPA I Tuesday, April 18, 2023
FREIBURG – A report on sexual abuse by ministers in the German Archdiocese of Freiburg incriminates 84-year-old former Archbishop Robert Zollitsch.
During his time in office he completely ignored church law in connection with abuse cases, said Eugen Endress, one of the authors of the report, in Freiburg on Tuesday.
“We were speechless,” Endress said, and gave the example that a violation of celibacy by a clergyman was punished, while abuse of children and young people had not been punished under church law.
Zollitsch had already admitted to wrongdoing and personal guilt in a video. “He was right in this self-assessment,” said retired judge Endress, referring to the remarks.
Before the press conference, Zollitsch announced through a spokesperson that he did not want to comment on the final report.
Zollitsch was president of the German Catholic Bishops’ Conference from 2008 up to his retirement in 2014, and led the Archdiocese of Freiburg from 2003 to 2013.
Zollitsch was personnel officer in the Archbishop’s Ordinariate for two decades starting in 1983.
With around 1.8 million Catholics, the archdiocese is one of the largest of the 27 dioceses in Germany.
The report was presented by the independent group, AG Aktenanalyse (Working Group on File Analysis), comprised of four external experts from the judiciary and criminal police who had been working on it since 2019. The report is intended to show how cover-ups and abuse were possible in the archdiocese.
Similar studies have already been conducted in the Cologne and Munich dioceses. In Rottenburg-Stuttgart, in contrast to other dioceses, Bishop Gebhard Fürst already appointed an independent “Sexual Abuse Commission” 20 years ago.
