Church in trouble over cover-up of pedophilia

Rainer Maria Woelki is facing sharp criticism for delaying the clarification of child sexual abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Cologne. As a result, believers are leaving the Church en masse, and priests are also protesting.

Thirty fire trucks rushed to the famous Cologne Cathedral at dawn on Friday. They received a phone call from an eyewitness who claimed that smoke was coming out of the symbol of the city on the Rhine. After a 45-minute search, the firefighters found nothing. They assume that the man saw a haze around the high towers of the cathedral and thought it was smoke.

This alarm illustrates the state of the Archdiocese of Cologne well. Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki is facing criticism from priests and believers for hesitating to confront cases of sexual abuse in his archdiocese. The waiting lists at the city administration, where citizens have to schedule an appointment to officially leave the Church and stop paying church tax, are getting longer and longer, writes DW.

Thus, probably the richest Catholic diocese in the world is left with fewer and fewer believers. Many see Cardinal Woelki as the culprit for this.

For ten years, cases of sexual abuse have plagued the Catholic Church in Germany. In 2018, Cardinal Woelki commissioned a Munich law firm to prepare a comprehensive report and not spare any of his priests if they had sexually abused children. But when the report was ready, Woelki himself blocked its publication.

It became known that the cardinal did not report his friend, an old priest – now deceased – even though he knew he was suspected of sexual abuse. Woelki replaces his spokespersons frequently and constantly claims that malicious media are to blame for his archdiocese being portrayed in a bad light.