Abused babies and cover-ups – the report on the Catholic Church in 8 points

A year ago, the Swiss Bishops’ Conference gave two historians Monika Dommann and Marietta Meier from the University of Zurich an important task. You should conduct a preliminary study to investigate sexual abuse in the context of the Catholic Church in Switzerland. The Catholic Church opened its archives for the first time for this purpose.

Last year, researchers analyzed numerous documents and also interviewed those affected who contacted them through victim organizations. Today Dommann and Meier dropped the bomb. They publish their report, exposing structural grievances within the Catholic Church in Switzerland, some of which remain unresolved.

The most important findings can be found here:

The researchers were able to find evidence of sexual abuse in 1,002 cases in the files of the Catholic Church. 74 percent of these documents concern sexual abuse of minors. As the researchers write, “the entire age spectrum” was represented.

No matter how macabre it sounds. This initial situation did not surprise the researchers. However, there is another figure: 14 percent, or one in seven cases of abuse, involved adults at the time of the crime. “This is all the more important as many previous investigations into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church focused exclusively on minors and thus did not consider a relevant proportion of those affected,” the report said.

In 39 percent of cases, those affected were women. Male in 56 percent of cases. The researchers were unable to assign a gender to five percent of those affected.

In total, the preliminary investigation identified 510 suspects and 921 affected people. With a few exceptions, the suspects were always men. In more than 50 percent of the cases analyzed, a person working in pastoral care was the perpetrator. So maybe a priest. The researchers conclude that pastoral care, liturgy – especially if there is contact with altar boys – and pedagogy, for example in religious education, are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse.

The second most common, 30 percent of cases, involved sexual abuse in the education and welfare sector. So, for example, in homes, schools, boarding schools and similar institutions. These church institutions took on important tasks for the state, especially until the mid-1990s.

The preliminary research identified only 2 percent of cases of sexual abuse in religious orders or similar communities. However, that does not mean that there was little or no sexual abuse. The source situation for religious communities and the like was particularly difficult. Writings documenting sexual abuse did not exist or were not accessible to researchers.

The researchers examined the past 70 years and came to the conclusion:

They were able to identify almost 22 percent of the cases evaluated between 1950 and 1959. 25 percent of the cases occurred between 1960 and 1969. “Over the next thirty years, approximately one-tenth of the cases could still be attributed,” the report continues. Finally, 12 percent of the evaluated cases occurred between 2000 and 2022.

Does this mean that sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has decreased over the years? Unfortunately not necessarily. As the researchers write, it should be noted that those affected often only talk about their abuse decades later. “It is therefore possible that a significant proportion of cases have not yet been reported after the turn of the millennium.”

After a year of intensive conversations with those affected and examination of the church’s files, the researchers draw a clear conclusion: “The identified cases are undoubtedly only the tip of the iceberg.” This is because they were unable to assess a large number of archives. This includes a large number of archives of religious communities, documents from the work of diocesan committees and assets of Catholic schools, boarding schools and homes.

In addition, the focus of her preliminary research was on church archives. The state has not yet been able to take this into account. “These are likely to document further cases of abuse that have not yet been recorded.”

But even a complete review of all church and state archives would not be sufficient to track the extent of sexual abuse in church settings. Numerous files that could prove abuse were destroyed. The researchers can prove this in two cases. In other cases they must assume that bishops, committees, etc. have destroyed documents because canon law sometimes even allows this.

The report may also partially show that reports from those affected have not been consistently recorded in writing by the church. The researchers therefore assume that the number of unreported cases of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church is considerably higher than they have been able to demonstrate over the past seventy years.

The researchers clearly want to distance themselves from the story that cases of abuse in the Catholic Church in Switzerland are isolated cases. Instead, they denounce the power constellations of the Catholic Church that promote sexual abuse.

They call this special spiritual, social and economic power constellation ‘particularly Catholic’. Explain:

Although power does not automatically lead to abuse, ‘abuse without power is unthinkable’. Moreover, their role as caring and forgiving ‘fathers’ is in stark contrast to their role as a judicial and therefore punitive power.

“The result was the trivialization and cover-up of sexual abuse for decades.” So the cases of abuse in the Catholic Church are not the result of misconduct by individual people. They are systematic and structural.

Church employees must not only comply with the criminal code, but also with canon law. This also considers sexual abuse a serious criminal offense under canon law. Theoretically. But as the researchers discovered:

For example, if a child or his parents reported allegations of sexual abuse by a priest to the bishop, the accused was usually simply transferred to another parish. When there was a threat of prosecution by the state, they often took the suspect abroad. The researchers note that this practice was used systematically and “in a large number of cases.”

With this strategy, those responsible in the Catholic Church have not only protected the perpetrators, but also enabled them to commit further abuses. Your conclusion:

According to the report, this practice only changed from 2010 after numerous cases of abuse via Swiss media became public. Since then, the obligation to conduct ecclesiastical criminal proceedings and report cases of sexual abuse of minors to Rome has been implemented more consistently. However, there has only been an internal church reporting obligation since 2019.

In 2001, the Swiss Bishops’ Conference decided that each diocese should establish a specialized commission on “Sexual Violence in Pastoral Care”. The effects of these specialist committees, which were formed from 2002 onwards, are visible, the researchers write: “65 percent of all cases evaluated were only reported after the specialist committees were established, although only about a fifth of cases occurred in 2002 and 2022.”

However, the researchers are not yet completely convinced of its effectiveness. On the one hand, because they cannot express consequences, but are only allowed to formulate recommendations and suggestions. On the other hand, because the committees are professionalized to varying degrees.

The report also points to a case in the Diocese of St. Gallen that occurred in 2002. Despite repeated efforts by the national expert committee, no action was taken against a priest for years. “Even as the allegations were repeated, they became more specific and verifiable.” The researchers conclude:

Six bishops, four of whom are still in office, have covered up several cases of alleged sexual abuse. One of them even attacked a young person himself. Nicolas Betticher, former vicar general of the diocese of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg and former spokesman for the Swiss bishops, wrote these accusations in a letter to the Pope’s ambassador to Switzerland. Last weekend the “Sonntagsblick”, which contains the letter, made its contents public.

As it turns out, in several cases of sexual abuse by priests, the bishops accused by Betticher did not take any criminal or canonical action, but instead promoted the priests or transferred them abroad. In an interview with SRF, Betticher also says that some of these alleged abuse cases have occurred in the past decade. So they are relatively current.

If his allegations turn out to be true, it would mean that the way the Catholic Church in Switzerland deals with sexual abuse cases has still not changed. Perpetrators continue to be protected, crimes are covered up, and the interests of the dignitaries of the Catholic Church are placed above the well-being of the religious community.

But at least something new has already come to light: the Vatican has responded to Betticher’s allegations and ordered the Bishop of Chur to conduct an internal preliminary investigation. Such a step – investigations commissioned by the Vatican against high-ranking clerics – has never taken place in Switzerland.

The Swiss Public Prosecution Service is also involved in the investigation. According to “Sonntagsblick”, four reports have already been received in connection with cases of abuse.