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  Ecclesiastical and Judicial Incompetence in New Abuse Case in Germany

Catholic Church Conservation
July 20, 2011

http://cathcon.blogspot.com/2011/07/ecclesiastical-and-judicial.html

Priest ignored ban on contact with teenagers

A Catholic priest from Salzgitter has confessed to molesting three minors. For several years, he had been forbidden contact with a young person. But recently he had not paid attention to the direct order from his diocese.

Salzgitter - Shortly before his arrest on abuse allegations, a Catholic priest from the Salzgitter violated a contact ban imposed by the diocese. The 46-year-old had again approached a teenager whose family in 2006 had demanded more distance from the cleric. The diocese confirmed that on Wednesday.

The priest had clearly broken the 2006 ban on contact. Neither then nor now, was there question of sexual abuse, the diocese spokesman said. For five years, the cleric had acted on the clear instructions of the church.

There were indications that the cleric had stayed in a bed with a boy in 2006 - the family of the accused protested. When the same family again in 2010 reported the incident four years earlier, the diocese put the matter to the prosecutor's office for examination. The iffice did not find any criminal act and stopped the investigation. According to a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office in Hildesheim, the diocese had reported the facts, without mentioning the name of the priest.

The 46-year-old was held last week arrested were - just before he was to leave with a youth group for a camp in France.

The man has since confessed to molesting three minors. A mother and her son had previously complained about him to the poluce. The police said he abused the boy several times and over several years, since 2004, when the child was ten years old.

 
 

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