The Federal Government's new independent commissioner for questions of sexual abuse, Kerstin Claus, has called on the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) to do more to deal with sexual violence.

The ZdK, with the organizations and associations represented in it, is "an essential factor in the success of dealing with sexual violence in the Catholic Church," said the abuse officer on Wednesday before the ZdK general meeting in Stuttgart.

Daniel Deckers

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

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However, the Catholic laypersons should become more visible with "clear demands towards the German Bishops' Conference and in public," said Claus, who is herself at home in the Protestant Church and has conducted numerous negotiations with church leaders in recent years as a member of the Advisory Board for Affected Persons at the UBSKM.

Claus described the fact that two members of the Advisory Board for Affected People at the Bishops' Conference of the General Assembly of the ZdK was a step in the right direction.

The change of perspective expressed in this, away from talking about those affected and towards their participation, has its own value.

Nevertheless, a lot still has to change locally, in the individual dioceses, the individual communities and the individual associations.

Only a few models of “good affected participation”

Those affected not only have a right to processing, but also to visibility.

This also obliges the state, which has often not or not sufficiently exercised its guardianship: children and young people are not protected, those affected have not been seen.

This means that the institutions concerned are now obliged to take responsibility for investigating, dealing with and preventing further sexual violence.

Despite all the failures, the Catholic Church has made more formal progress on this path in recent years than any other institution in Germany.

Two years ago, all bishops committed themselves to the then independent commissioner, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig, to set up diocesan independent investigation commissions and councils for those affected.

Claus reported that the commissions had meanwhile started work everywhere.

Likewise, councils for those affected have been formed in many dioceses.

However, there are only a few models of "good affected participation", for example in Aachen, Paderborn and Münster.

Elsewhere, the selection of those affected was not very transparent, and there were also a lack of resources that would guarantee the independence of the councils.

Claus formulates expectations of the ZdK

According to the independent commissioners, there is also a lack of binding good and common standards for the mandates for the diocesan independent review commissions.

The ZdK has not shown any particular interest in this, as in so many other abuses in the individual dioceses, although at least two lay representatives from each diocese belong to it.

Against this background, Claus expressed her expectations of the ZdK in the words that "a new quality of interference, in discourse with politicians and with the Bishops' Conference" was necessary.

However, during the General Assembly there was no indication that the ZdK had already developed ideas as to how it could fulfill its role better than in the past.

The President of the ZdK, Irme Stetter-Karp, only called for stronger state standardization of the processing processes and referred to a position paper by Rörig and the relevant statements in the coalition agreement between the SPD, Greens and FDP in the federal government.

The member of the presidium Wolfgang Klose said that one expects to be involved.

Of course, the German Bishops' Conference had already announced last autumn that they wanted to "place the personal responsibility structure for questions of sexual abuse on a broader basis".

This also includes a concept for the further development of the area of ​​responsibility of the bishops' conference commissioner for abuse, "which should take into account the new tasks, changed requirements and expectations as well as the increased sensitivity to questions of any form of abuse".

Little has happened since that announcement.

Trier Bishop Stefan Ackermann has resigned his position as abuse commissioner after twelve years next fall.

But a new concept does not even exist in its basic form.

We have not spoken to the ZdK either, nor to the advisory board for those affected.

In the meantime, the latter has requested participation in the "further development", the ZdK still has this step ahead of it.

The ZdK was therefore able to relate the assessment of the abuse officer that “more support and monitoring” was needed to itself.