Markus Hofmann, as Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Cologne and the right hand of Archbishop Rainer Maria Cardinal Woelki, has made his office available.

According to the press office of the diocese with the most members, this step serves to “further professionalize” the diocese administration.

During the five-month break that Pope Francis imposed in September as punishment for serious communication errors in dealing with abuse reports and those affected, Woelki came to the conclusion that it was time for a "system change".

Daniel Deckers

responsible for “The Present” in the political editorial team.

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Thomas Jansen

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In the future there should be three clearly profiled business areas in the diocese administration.

A vicar general can primarily take care of his “numerous pastoral tasks”, while a “head of office” organizes the administration in a contemporary way.

Nothing was said about the third area, economics.

The press release does not explain why Hofmann will not be available for the position of Vicar General from the summer, which will be relieved of many tasks – even though he was quoted as saying that he thinks the new distribution of tasks is correct.

After all, he is a theologian and not an economics or administration specialist.

Woelki, who became Archbishop of Cologne in 2014, made Hofmann his vicar general in early 2018.

This was preceded by a rift with Dominik Meiering, who had been the cardinal's alter ego since 2015.

During the "Cologne turmoil" surrounding Woelki's actions in the abuse crisis of the Catholic Church, Hofmann was one of the few members of the diocese leadership whom the cardinal still trusted.

The 54-year-old clergyman not only coordinated the efforts to prevent the publication of the abuse report by the Munich law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl with legal means and with great PR effort, but was also responsible for the costs of this procedure, which were officially estimated at 2.3 million euros.

Recent financial irregularities

During Woelki's "time out", however, there were increasing indications that the financial conduct of Hofmann and Finance Director Gordon Sobbeck might not always have been correct.

Auxiliary Bishop Rolf Steinhäuser, who had been appointed as administrator by Pope Francis for five months, then arranged for a canon law review of the relevant contractual arrangements.

The independent report has been in the Vatican for months and has so far been taken as little seriously as Bishop Steinhäuser himself.

However, the focus of the press release on the professionalization of the administration and Hofmann's resignation was on renewed financial irregularities.

Hofmann and Sobbeck were described as the bearers of the message, according to which a "contractual arrangement with unusual content" had become known "as part of a routine administrative process".

This has a “considerable and long-term economic binding effect” for both the Archdiocese of Cologne and an unspecified foundation.

Nevertheless, it was not accounted for either by the archdiocese or by the foundation in question.