Investigators believe the actual death toll could be much higher – up to between 5,000 and 6,000 extra – due to unreported cases, the report’s authors said in a press conference describing their findings Monday. Münster Bishop Felix Genn, who was appointed to his post in 2008, received the university’s findings on Monday and said he would make a public statement on Friday. CNN addressed the Vatican separately for comment. Historian Natalie Powroznik, who participated in the study, blamed the priests for an average of two individual acts of victim abuse a week, but said that number could also be higher. “Three-quarters of the victims were boys between the ages of 10 and 14,” Powroznik said. The victims were tied to the church through the service of a waiter, the church youth camps or during the reception of the sacred sacraments. The researchers further claim that bishops in the diocese over the decades were aware of the widespread abuse, but failed to act and repeatedly used abusive clergy in pastoral care, allowing further acts to occur. According to the study, only 12% of the alleged offenders were removed. A common practice for dealing with abusive clergy was to either warn them or send them to a convent for short periods of time, but most of the accused abusers were sent to another parish where they continued their crimes, investigators said. Today, about 50 of the accused priests are still alive, they added. The study also found that 43% of victims surveyed reported severe physical violence and had to suffer “substantial consequences” psychologically, such as anxiety disorders and depression. Historians have also noted several suicide attempts among victims allegedly due to abuse. The new report is the latest in a series of allegations of widespread sexual abuse of children in the German Catholic Church in recent years. In January, a report commissioned by the Church of Catholic Church in Munich and Freising for abuse by Catholic clergy concluded that Pope Benedict XVI was aware of abusive priests during his stay there from 1977 to 1982. failed to act. One month after the report was published, the retired Pope apologized but denied any wrongdoing. A 2018 report commissioned by the Conference of German Bishops found that at least 1,670 clergy participated in at least 3,677 cases of child sexual abuse by the clergy between 1946 and 2014.
