GERMANY
Vatican Insider

It was set up in February 2010 and was meant to encourage those who had suffered sex abuse in the Church to come forward. The hotline was apparently shut down due to lack of use

Alessandro Speciale
Vatican City

After the German Catholic Church stopped the KFN’s (Kriminologischen Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen) study into the phenomenon of paedophilia in the Church because of a disagreement that arose between the two, on Thursday German bishops announced they were closing down the special hotline created as a first point of call for abuse victims.

Together with the study, the hotline was one of the key elements of the strategy for countering the paedophile priest scandal which exploded in Germany in 2010. The hotline was aimed at “encouraging victims to talk about their experiences of sex abuse in the Catholic Church.”

The hotline was initially meant to stay open until…