German abuse victims reject compensation offer
DEREK SCALLY in Berlin
GERMAN CLERICAL abuse victims have rejected a compensation offer from the Jesuit order of €5,000 as too low.
A year after the first allegations of abuse surfaced at a Jesuit school in Berlin, an organisation representing victims said it was holding out for €82,000 per person.
“The sum is totally insufficient, either to compensate for the damage caused or to signal a recognition of guilt,” said Thomas Weiner from the Eckiger Tisch (Square Table) organisation.
He said he was uncertain whether the offer made by the order was real or simply a declaration of intent.
A Jesuit spokesman said a fund totalling €1 million had been set up and letters circulated to 205 victims who had come forward in the recent months.
The spokesman, Thomas Busch, declined to call the planned payments “compensation” saying that “no amount can ever compensate for the suffering incurred”.
He added that the payout would not be made for another three months, while the German Bishops’ Conference agreed a separate compensation package for people abused in parishes, schools and other church-run institutions.
Revelations of systematic abuse in the 1970s and 1980s at the Canisius College in Berlin triggered a wave of revelations in German Catholic-run institutions last year, including some in the Munich diocese once headed by the Pope.
The German Bishops’ Conference ordered an inquiry, found evidence of failure to investigate claims adequately and agreed new proposals to prevent problematic priests being moved on rather than being reported to police.
In the intervening months more than 200 cases of such abuse have emerged, but many cases cannot be prosecuted because they have passed the statute of limitations.
Pope Benedict is scheduled to make a state visit to Germany in September.
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