TRIER (GERMANY)
The Pillar [Washington DC]
October 17, 2025
By Luke Coppen
Cardinal Marx and Bishop Bätzing are expected to feature in the study
A report will be published at the end of October assessing how prominent German Catholic leaders handled abuse cases while serving in the Diocese of Trier.
Researchers from the University of Trier will present Oct. 30 an interim report on the diocese’s response to sexual abuse from 2002 to 2021.
The report will examine the period when Cardinal Reinhard Marx, now Archbishop of Munich and Freising, led the Trier diocese. Marx was the Bishop of Trier from 2002 to 2007, when he was succeeded by Bishop Stephan Ackermann, who continues to lead the diocese.
Bishop Georg Bätzing, the chairman of the German bishops’ conference, served as vicar general of the Trier diocese from 2012 until he was named the Bishop of Limburg in 2016.
Ackermann, who oversaw the German bishops’ conference’s response to abuse cases from 2010 to 2022, is due to hold a press conference hours after the report’s launch.
German media are likely to closely scrutinize whether the report criticizes Marx, Ackermann, or Bätzing.
Marx, who also serves as the coordinator of the Vatican’s Council for the Economy, offered to resign as Archbishop of Munich and Freising in 2021, saying he wished “to share the responsibility for the catastrophe of the sexual abuse by Church officials over the past decades.” Pope Francis did not accept his resignation.
Marx served as chairman of the German bishops’ conference from 2014 to 2020, overseeing the launch of the controversial “synodal way.” The initiative, which brought together bishops and select lay representatives from 2019 to 2023 to discuss changes to Church teaching and practice, was presented as a response to the abuse crisis that engulfed German Catholicism in the 2010s. After Bätzing succeeded Marx as chairman of the bishops’ conference, he oversaw the project to its conclusion.
The new interim report follows two previous studies by the University of Trier that had a significant impact on the Church in Germany.
The first, issued in 2022, concluded that Bishop Bernhard Stein had mishandled abuse cases during his term as Bishop of Trier from 1967 to 1981. It said that under Stein, who died in 1993, the diocese had failed to cooperate with the public prosecutor’s office over cases involving clergy out of a desire to avoid scandal.
City authorities responded to the report by renaming a square named in honor of Stein. They redesignated Bischof-Stein-Platz as Platz der Menschenwürde (Human Dignity Square) in 2023.
The second interim report, published in 2024, assessed the period from 1981 to 2001, when the diocese was led by Bishop Hermann Josef Spital, identifying at least 199 abuse victims.
The report did not accuse the bishop, who died in 2001, of deliberately concealing cases. But it said: “Spital took on the task of investigating reports of sexual abuse. His solutions were based on pastoral trust, but completely inappropriate given the high risk of recidivism, especially among repeat offenders.”
The Trier diocese, located in western Germany near the borders with France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, dates back to the third century.
The University of Trier’s interim reports, which are based on historical research, are part of a broader project overseen by the Independent Commission for Addressing Sexual Abuse in the Diocese of Trier.
Research on the handling of abuse cases in the diocese began in 2021, with a comprehensive final report, incorporating the university’s findings, expected by 2027.