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Munich / Trier / Limburg (dpa) - Three prominent Catholic bishops want to take responsibility in a case of abuse that they were all involved in processing.

These are the chairman of the German Bishops' Conference (DBK), Georg Bätzing, his predecessor in office, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, and the DBK abuse officer Stephan Ackermann.

"The bishops and the other significantly involved in this case want to face their responsibility," it said on Wednesday in a joint statement from their Catholic dioceses Limburg and Trier and the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.

Previously, in the “Zeit” supplement “Christ & Welt”, the Munich Cardinal Marx spoke out in favor of dealing with the abuse case from his time as Bishop of Trier.

According to the communication from the dioceses, the case concerns a priest against whom there have been several allegations of sexual violence.

According to "Christ & Welt", the priest in question was not withdrawn from circulation for years and was able to continue to maintain professional contact with children and young people, although there were several relevant reports against him.

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Today's Cardinal Marx was Bishop of Trier in 2006 when there were reports about the priest for the first time. Ackermann, who is now the bishop there, was a member of the personnel commission as auxiliary bishop. And the current DBK boss and Bishop of Limburg, Bätzing, was a member of the personnel commission in the diocese of Trier in 2006 as Regens and later as vicar general in the case.

“In fact, errors did occur in the course of the processing of this case, both in dealing with those affected and in the handling of the processing. Those responsible then and now in the diocese have publicly admitted this several times and expressly regretted it », the three bishops reported through their spokesmen. They were now hoping for recommendations from the processing commission in Trier as to what consequences would have to be drawn. "For me it is clear: Even ignorance in the case of wrong actions or omissions does not prevent responsibility and guilt from being present and having to be accepted," Marx informed "Christ & Welt" in writing.

What did the bishops know?

This question has become a central one in the abuse scandal of the Catholic Church.

And as controversial as the recently presented abuse report from the Diocese of Cologne was, no matter how late it came, it set up criteria by which German bishops must now be measured.

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"Christ & Welt" applied precisely these criteria for misconduct or breach of duty to the case, which has been known for a long time - and based on these criteria examined above all Marx's role in it.

"If you apply the new standards of the Cologne report, Marx as Bishop of Trier in 2006 could have violated his duties in several ways," says the article.

"From today's perspective, I should have arranged for us as the diocese to request the prosecution's files and pursue the allegations in our own canonical preliminary investigation, also to check whether the accusation is also statute-barred under canon law," admitted Marx in the "Zeit" Insert a. "I very much regret my behavior at the time," quoted "Christ & Welt" the cardinal. When asked whether he could have prevented actions, Marx replied: "The question follows me too."

Marx asked Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Tuesday, following protests from those affected, not to award him the Federal Cross of Merit, which he was to receive this week.

This decision, so emphasized Marx's spokesman in Munich at the request of the German Press Agency, should have nothing to do with the publication in the "Zeit" supplement.

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In an interview with the magazine “Publik-Forum” (Friday edition), Marx emphasized how important it is to take responsibility: “There is personal responsibility that should not be belittled.

But there is also the responsibility of the institution as such, for which I as bishop also have to answer.

It cannot be that I am only responsible if something is proven to me, ”he said.

One shouldn't “downplay the catastrophe”.

The abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in Germany was first uncovered in 2010.

It turned out that since 1945 priests had sexually abused thousands of children.

Only a tiny fraction of the crimes were prosecuted.

Several reports have since shown that bishops and other officials mostly tried to cover up the acts in order to prevent the church from losing its reputation.

The former head of the study on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Harald Dreßing, sees in Marx's waiver of the Federal Cross of Merit "that the process of dealing with it is still at a very sensitive stage."

The “Augsburger Allgemeine” (Thursday) he said: “Here, too, there is a typical pattern in the work-up process: A reaction only takes place when there is pressure from outside.”

The case, which has now come back into focus, is very complex, according to the communication from the three dioceses.

There have been several public prosecutor's investigations and two canonical preliminary investigations.

Those affected have not yet received any recognition payments, "because no judicial decision has yet been made in the church criminal proceedings".

The proceedings are currently at the church court in Cologne.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210428-99-389751 / 3