GERMANY
Vatican Insider

Never before has the German Church seen a media campaign on the same scale as the one launched against the Bishop of Limburg

GUIDO HORST
BERLIN

The list of bishops who should be packing their bags in light of the fierce media campaign launched against them in German-speaking lands, is by no means short: the Vatican moved Bishop Wolfgang Haas of Chur away from Switzerland and out of the press and ecclesiastical leadership’s firing line, to the safe haven of the Archdiocese of Valduz in Lichtenstein, established for him in 1997. In 1995 the press sullied Viennese cardinal Hans Hermann Groer’s name, accusing him of sexual molestation, but these accusations came to nothing thanks to the zealous intervention of former suffragan bishop, Christoph Schönborn. Similarly, in Austrian in 2004, Kurt Krenn of Sankt Pölten was forced to step back after years of attacks and accusations…