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Berlin (dpa) - At least 61 clergy were involved in the sexual abuse of minors in the area of the Catholic Archdiocese of Berlin between 1946 and the end of 2019.
A total of 121 victims became known from the files during this time.
This emerges from an independent report commissioned by the church, which was presented in Berlin on Friday.
The number of unreported cases could be much higher, according to the report by the Redeker Sellner Dahs law firm.
The accused are mainly priests and members of the order who were active in the area of the diocese.
Hierarchical structures and a lack of communication have hampered education and prevention, notes the paper.
The lawyer Peter-Andreas Brand, one of the authors, spoke of “systematic irresponsibility”.
They tried with all means to "avert damage to the church as an institution," said co-author Sabine Wildfeuer.
The church leadership had a greater empathy for the perpetrators than for the victims.
The judiciary investigated 21 cases, of which court proceedings were opened in eleven cases.
When the abuse cases at the Berlin Canisius College became known in 2002, there was a paradigm shift towards more openness to abuse cases.
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Archbishop Heiner Koch said he was responsible for “where guilt was covered up or not appropriately dealt with, where people in the“ church system ”refused to admit the obvious or systematically looked the other way.
Those affected who have not yet contacted the church should contact the church.
A commission made up of priests and laypeople is now to process the report and submit proposals for how to deal with cases of abuse in the future.
The archbishopric included Berlin, the central and northern part of Brandenburg, Western Pomerania and the city of Havelberg in Saxony-Anhalt.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210129-99-222430 / 2
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Archdiocese of Berlin