BERLIN (GERMANY)
Associated Press
March 5, 2020
Germany’s Roman Catholic bishops on Thursday approved new guidelines that likely will provide for payments ranging up to about 50,000 euros ($55,700) each for victims of sexual abuse by clergy.
The church has been shaken in recent years by scandals in several countries, including Germany. A church-commissioned report in 2018 concluded that at least 3,677 people were abused by clergy in Germany between 1946 and 2014 — more than half of them 13 or younger and nearly a third of them altar boys. A top bishop has apologized for the abuse.
The German Bishops’ Conference said at the end of a regular meeting Thursday that compensation payments would be decided by “a central and independent body on the basis of an examination of plausibility.”
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