The Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer, has called on the Catholic Church to carry out a "comprehensive cultural change" in view of the abuse scandal.
The abolition of celibacy has long been a demand from within the church, said the SPD politician, who is also a member of the Central Committee of German Catholics, of the Düsseldorf "Rheinische Post".
"But the question of what the church will look like in the future goes far beyond that."
Dreyer emphasized that those affected by abuse must be involved in the processing and recognized and compensated.
Second, the causes that would have made abuse and its cover-up possible must be eliminated.
"And thirdly, we must also accompany the process politically," said the Rhineland-Palatinate head of government.
"For example, by strengthening the powers of the state's Independent Commission for the Study of Child Sexual Abuse."
Dreyer criticized that the Catholic Church had systematically covered up the fact that children and young people had been injured in body and soul.
“This shakes the foundations of the church and also me personally.
It's unbearable."
Reforms in compulsory celibacy?
The third conference of the Catholic reform dialogue Synodal Way on the consequences of the abuse crisis ends in Frankfurt am Main on Saturday. The third synodal assembly is overshadowed by the new report on abuse for the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which attests high-ranking clerics to moral failure. Among other things, the synodal path discusses reforms in the mandatory celibacy for priests and the role of women in the Catholic Church.
The Association of German Criminal Investigators has meanwhile called for a speedy legal processing of the abuse cases in the Catholic Church.
"It is time that the legal obligation to prosecute is consistently implemented, even if it hurts the church," said the professional association in a statement published on Friday evening.
"Abuse of children and young people must not have a lobby."
From the point of view of the detectives, the way the church has dealt with sexual abuse so far has given rise to "anything but confidence" that criminals would be brought before the legal courts.
Instead, some of the cases discussed in the media showed "that suspects could rely on the clemency of the Catholic Church and were merely transferred to other places," according to the BDK.
"The people responsible were apparently not bothered by the fact that alleged perpetrators continued to work with children and young people.
It remains questionable how this can be reconciled with the supposedly high moral standards of the Catholic Church.”