VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service via National Catholic Reporter
July 2, 2020
by Junno Arocho Esteves
Documents uncovered from the recently opened archives of the pontificate of Pope Pius XII revealed allegations of sexual abuse and abuse of power against the founder of the Schonstatt movement, Fr. Joseph Kentenich.
Reports of the apostolic visitation made in the early 1950s written by Dutch Jesuit Father Sebastiaan Tromp were made known by German scholar Alexandra von Teuffenbach July 2 after she wrote a letter regarding her discovery to German newspaper Die Tagespost and Italian journalist Sandro Magister.
Von Teuffenbach, a former professor of church history at Rome’s Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University, said the testimonies, letters and conversations Tromp had with members of the Schonstatt Sisters of Mary, as well as Kentenich, revealed “a situation of complete subjugation of the nuns, concealed in a certain way by a sort of family structure applied to the work.”
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