[ad_1]
rehe Archbishop of Hamburg, Stefan Heße, no longer wants to serve as assistant cleric of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) until further notice. According to participants in a special meeting of the ZdK general assembly, which was scheduled on short notice for Thursday evening, Heße said he wanted to let this office rest until all allegations about possible misconduct in handling abuse cases during his time as the former head of the personal pastoral care department in the Archdiocese of Cologne.
Daniel Deckers
in the responsible political drafting of “El Presente”.
In the afternoon, Heße had essentially confirmed a report from the FAZ to the Catholic News Agency (KNA), according to which the Archbishop of Cologne, Rainer Maria Cardinal Woelki, informed him on April 1, 2019 that he was going to be with other . Those responsible for a case of serious sexual abuse of minors in 2010/2011 behaved “illegally in several respects”. Heße continued to deny any personal guilt and blamed the jurists in the diocese for not taking the case to the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Serious misconduct in abuse cases in 2010
What is indisputable, however, is that today’s archbishop of Hamburg signed a telephone note with his paraphysis in the fall of 2010, in which he said of a conversation with the alleged perpetrator in which “he told everything here.” but “he did not record us.” Will, “as this would be confiscable.” There are only “own handwritten notes” that “could be destroyed if necessary”. “Prelate Dr. Heße agrees to the procedure.” However, the archdiocese’s guidelines for dealing with cases of sexual abuse provided for the creation of a protocol signed by both parties and a psychiatric evaluation of sexually violent clergy in cases such as these.
A few days ago, the president of the Central Committee, Thomas Sternberg, saw no reason for the General Assembly on Friday to even address the latest events in the Church in relation to the investigation of sexual violence. He became defensive over recent reports of an expert opinion on sexual abuse being suppressed in the Archdiocese of Cologne, as was the Archbishop of Hamburg over revelations about his benevolent behavior towards a perpetrator without regard for those affected.
In the evening, Sternberg Heße paid his respects. Internally, he had repeatedly appeared before the Archbishop of Hamburg in recent days. Heße now relies on an expert opinion on how to deal with sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Cologne, which was commissioned by a Cologne criminal law firm in September. Sternberg, in turn, has to account for his submissive actions at the top of the secular organization to members of the general assembly on Friday. The pressure was not on him, but on other members of the presidium, to have Heße temporarily withdraw.
