VIENNA (AUSTRIA)
La Croix International
September 19, 2018
By Christa Pongratz-Lippit
Current structures actually prevent critical investigation and verification of clerical sexual abuse and its cover-up
A Jesuit priest who was one of the key people to reveal what Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn once described as the “tsunami” of clerical sex abuse cases in the German-speaking world has now called for in-depth structural changes to the Catholic Church.
Father Klaus Mertes SJ, a well-known writer and educator, said the latest wave of revelations concerning abuse and its cover-up in various parts of the world indicates that the phenomenon is not just a local matter, but a global problem that can be solved only through major Church reform.
In an opinion piece for the German Catholic Church’s official website katholisch.de and in a long interview with the website Kathpress on Sept. 13, the 64-year-old Jesuit said the latest reports from the United States, Ireland, Australia, the United States and other places show that not nearly enough attention has been paid to the problem of abuse cover-up.
He said it is now absolutely essential for the Church to tackle the question of its checks-and-balances (separation of powers), as well as the issues related to male-dominated structures (old boys’ networks). And he insisted that both were closely connected to the problem of institutional cover-up.
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