Christoph Driessen, dpa I Wednesday, April 26, 2023
BERLIN – Germany’s commissioner for child sexual abuse issues wants to monitor the Catholic Church more closely in future but said she was not planning to set up a state truth commission, questioning how effective that would be.
The Catholic Church in Germany has recently published official reports on historical abuse in several of its dioceses.
“I see the danger that such structures contain the idea that there is an end date, a big final report,” Commissioner for Child Sexual Abuse Issues Abuse Kerstin Claus told the Herder Korrespondenz newspaper.
“And there is always the wish that things will then be concluded and finished and good. But that does not match up to the reality of life for those affected. Coming to terms with the past does not mean drawing a line under it.”
Claus said it makes more sense to strengthen her office so that the Independent Commission on Reappraisal, which is based there, can better follow up on and monitor reappraisal processes.
“We are working together with the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, which leads this work for the federal government, to give this office a legal basis. Here, our perspective is not a large truth commission or a separate commission at the Bundestag,” Claus said.
Rather than creating slogans, the state must take responsibility to protect children and help those affected to come to terms with the past.
“In future, the churches will have to show their cards more when it comes to coming to terms with the past,” Claus said.
Claus had little patience with demands made by the Church for state support in the process of dealing with the past. At a press conference of the spring plenary meeting of the German Bishops’ Conference, for example, there was talk of the bishops asking for help from the state, but the state not being ready yet.
“That is of course a very one-sided definition of help,” Claus said, dismissing the idea. “I reject the idea that the Church can define what exactly it needs from the state and how the state should react and when.”
