Runaway priest in SA

SOUTH AFRICA
The New Age

Itumeleng Mafisa

A Roman Catholic priest who is allegedly facing charges of molesting five boys while based at a Randburg parish three years ago had “run away” to South Africa after facing similar allegations in his home town in Germany.

Church authorities on Thursday failed to explain how a priest who had allegedly committed such serious crimes had managed to avoid detection and land in a Johannesburg parish.

A source close to the case told The New Age that Fr Georg Kerkhoff was subsequently moved by the church and was “operating within the archdiocese of Cape Town”.

Durban Cardinal Wilfrid Napier’s comments that paedophilia is an illness and not a crime has brought the spotlight on the soft treatment of alleged child abusers within the Catholic church.

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