GERMANY
The New Age
Germany’s Roman Catholic Church said on Wednesday it had severed ties with criminologists commissioned to research sexual abuse by clergy in a row over the right to publish their findings.
The Church announced in July 2011 it would open its archives, which date back to the end of World War II, to shed light on abuse claims, tasking the northern Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony to analyse evidence.
But “mutual trust” between the Bishops’ Conference and the head of the research centre has been “shattered”, the bishops complained, adding they would now search for a new partner in the project.
Bishop Stephan Ackermann, appointed to handle issues surrounding claims of sexual abuse of minors, said they had been forced to terminate their contract with the institute “for an important reason with immediate effect”.
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