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Cologne (dpa) - A press conference by the Archdiocese of Cologne was canceled on Tuesday because the journalists present did not want to sign a confidentiality agreement.
The subject of the background discussion should be the abuse report held back by Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki.
In the agreement presented it said, among other things: "The journalist undertakes to treat the contents of the report disclosed to him by the law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl as confidential".
This applies, among other things, to the acts of sexual abuse described, named perpetrators, named responsible persons in dealing with suspected cases of sexual abuse from the Archdiocese of Cologne and the recommendations for the Archdiocese derived by the law firm.
"The journalist undertakes to keep this information completely confidential," it said in the "confidentiality agreement".
It was originally planned that the journalists should get an insight into the withheld abuse report during the conversation.
The archbishopric had announced that the names were blackened in the report.
Copies and copies should not have been made either.
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The report was initiated by Woelki in 2018.
The Munich law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl was supposed to find out how the archdiocese dealt with allegations of sexual abuse by priests in the past.
At the end of October 2020, however, Woelki announced that he did not want to publish the report.
His reasoning: it has considerable methodological deficiencies and is "not legally valid".
The criminal lawyer Matthias Jahn should explain these concerns in more detail at the press conference planned for Tuesday.
The Cologne criminal law expert Björn Gercke has received an order from Woelki to prepare a new report.
It should be released on March 18th.
Westpfahl Spilker Wastl rejects Woelki's allegations.
The chancellery announced that the mandate did not consist in checking the mere legality of those responsible for the diocese.
Rather, their actions should have been comprehensively assessed.
A similar report for the Diocese of Aachen was presented to the public in November by Westpfahl Spilker Wastl.
The expert opinion on the Archdiocese of Cologne goes tough with those responsible for the diocese.
It has already become known that today's Archbishop of Hamburg, Stefan Heße, is being viewed critically.
He rejects the allegations.