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Augsburg / Bonn (dpa) - According to the historian Martin Kaufhold, today's abuse scandal in the Catholic Church can be traced back to the priests' self-image, which was founded in the Middle Ages.

"I find it downright irritating how well a medieval historian still understands what is going on in the Catholic Church," said the professor from the University of Augsburg of the German Press Agency.

"Some of what some bishops utter today could have been said in the 12th or 13th century."

The Catholic clergy still see themselves as a distinguished group that live by their own rules.

The clergy traditionally see themselves as the sole mediator between God and man, for which they are qualified through ordination.

«Members of this group are primarily subject to divine law and only to a limited extent to civil laws.

If you look at how many priests have stood trial for child abuse in criminal courts, there are very few, although many of the cases are crimes. "

This self-image was developed and implemented in the Middle Ages because the believers - to whom a great many people belonged at the time - needed such a group.

«They needed the priests who were closer to God and who could therefore guarantee ordinary people in confession that their sins were forgiven.

That was a real need, and from it the image of priests developed to a large extent. "

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Today only very few of the practicing Catholics went to confession, said Kaufhold, who is himself a Catholic.

The medieval image of priests is therefore no longer anchored in today's society.

The Catholic Church must respond to this.

"And soon, it seems to me."

For the younger generation, the church has lost its relevance.

“That's why nobody gets upset anymore.

They don't care anymore. "

When conservative bishops said today that the church could not change in fundamental points because it was committed to an unchangeable plan of salvation, then one could only say that the church had also made significant U-turns in its 2000-year history, said Kaufhold.

"The constitution of the church has always evolved, it is a historical process."

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210222-99-537956 / 2