Catholic sexual abuse cases in Europe

Archdiocese of Vienna

In 1995 Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër stepped down as head of the Roman Catholic Church in Austria following accusations of sexual misconduct. In 1998 he left the country. He remained a cardinal.

Diocese of Sankt Pölten

Bishop Kurt Krenn resigned from his post in 2004 after there was a scandal concerning child pornography allegedly being downloaded by a student at the seminary. Up to 40,000 photos and an undisclosed number of films, including child pornography, were found on the computer of one of the seminarians, but Krenn earlier angered many by calling the images a "childish prank."

Belgium

Abuse affairs have affected several Belgian dioceses, which were hurt by allegations of abuse similar to those found in other Western countries. In response to this, an independent commission was established by the Belgian Episcopal Conference in 2000 under the presidency of Godelieve Halsberghe, a retired magistrate. A total of more than 300 complaints were made to the commission. The commission ultimately dealt with 33 formal complaints. 32 complaints were upheld by the commission, 1 was ruled false. Of these, only 1 case came before a court, because the facts of the other 31 cases were concerned with statutes of limitation. In about half of the 32 cases, the alleged abusers, clerics and religious, refused to appear before the commission, due to a lack of cooperation from the Belgian episcopate in forcing hierarchical obeyance to do so. The president and numerous commission members resigned from the commission as a result.

A second Independent Commission was established in 2009 under the presidency of psychiatrist Peter Adriaenssens. He resigned his commission in the aftermath of the large-scale police raid on 24 June 2010. Judicial police searched the archbishopric palace in Mechlin whilst the Belgian episcopal conference was officially meeting. Further searches were conducted at the archbishopric cathedral of Mechlin, the private residence of former archbishop Godfried Danneels in Mechlin and the offices of the independent commission in Leuven. 450 internal dossiers were confiscated.

Archdiocese of Mechlin-Brussels

Diocese of Antwerp

Diocese of Bruges

Diocese of Ghent

Diocese of Hasselt

On 27 November 2009, parish priest Bart Aben of Overpelt parish in Limburg was arrested by the police on accusations of rape and sexual abuse of two children, one male and one female, in his previous parish, Bocholtz over a long period of time, from 1991 until 2008. He confessed his abuse to his bishop, Mgr. Patrick Hoogmartens and the police.

Diocese of Liège

On 25 September 1992, parish priest Louis Dupont of Kinkempois parish near Liège was convicted to three years imprisonment and five years in case of repetition by a Belgian court for the rape of a minor girl and boy in 1990.

Diocese of Namur

Diocese of Tournai

Priest Jean-François Gysels, former parish priest in Brunehaut and Rumes and former deacon of Antoing in the diocese of Tournai, was arrested in 2006 as a result of operation Falcon, an American led worldwide investigation of internet child pornography.

Salesians

In 2007, a Belgian criminal court convicted Willem V.C., a laicised Salesian priest, to 4 years imprisonment for sexual delinquency with multiple adolescent minors. During the criminal investigation by the police and judiciary, previous acts of sexual delinquency were discovered that occurred during his membership of the Salesian congregation. He was expelled from this order in 2001 for these incidents.

Archdiocese of Zagreb

Ivan Čuček convicted in 2000 for sexual abuse of 37 young girls, sentenced to three years in prison, but later the Croatian Supreme Court reduced the sentence to one and a half years in case he commits such crime again.

Archdiocese of Rijeka

Drago Ljubičić convicted in 2007 was Catholic priest on island Rab sentenced to three years in prison for molesting five teenage boys. He will be first Catholic priest to serve prison time for sexual abuse in Croatia [1]. When asked by Catholic press agency Glas Koncila (prior to scandal) why children avoid going to church he blamed 'strong influence of communism on island Rab'.

Archdiocese of Olomouc

In 2000 Fr. František Merta and Olomouc Archbishop Jan Graubner were charged after allegations were made by a theology student, Václav Novák, that Merta had sexually abused altar boys since 1995. Novák persuaded a group of victims to come forward with their allegations against Merta. In 2001, Merta was found guilty of sexually abusing more than 20 boys and given a suspended sentence of two years. When he was a priest in Moravia, Archbishop Jan Graubner failed to report him. Instead, Graubner moved him from location to location whenever problems appeared. A book about Merta's child sexual abuse cases, Krici Hlasem Zrady (They Are Shouting the Voice of Betrayal), was published in March 2001 by Václav Novák.

Diocese of Copenhagen

In the end of April 2010 Danish Catholic Church reported pedophilia cases has risen to 17 cases.

France

Abuse affairs have also affected the Church in France.

Archdiocese of Paris

Diocese of Meaux

Parish priest Henri Lebras of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Meaux was sentenced to ten years for the rape of a twelve-year-old boy between 1995 and 1998.

Diocese of Evreux

65-year-old Canadian-born priest Denis Vadeboncoeur of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Évreux was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the rape of minors at the paroisse de Lieurey (Eure) between 1989 and 1992.

Archdiocese of Besançon

Archdiocese of Clermont

Germany

Archdiocese of Munich and Freising

The German daily newspaper the Süddeutsche Zeitung revealed details of the mishandling of the case of a pedophile priest in the archdiocese of Munich in the early 1980s when Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) was archbishop of Munich. In January 1980 Cardinal Ratzinger approved the transfer of Father Peter Hullermann, who had been accused of sexual abuse, including forcing an 11-year-old boy to perform oral sex upon him, to Munich to undergo therapy. Despite his record, Hullermann was assigned work in the area of pastoral care where he again abused minors. In June 1986 he was convicted of sexually abusing minors, fined DM4,000 and given an 18-month suspended sentence. Hullermann continued to serve as a priest in a variety of parishes in Bavaria, Germany until he was suspended on Monday March 14, 2010. In March 2010, Fr. Gerhard Gruber, who was at the time vicar general in Munich, assumed total responsibility for the decision to readmit Hullermann to pastoral care work, expressing regret and seeming to suggest that Cardinal Ratzinger had not been fully informed. According to sex abuse whistleblower Fr Tom Doyle, who was quoted in the New York Times, "Pope Benedict is a micromanager. He's the old style. Anything like that would have been brought to his attention. Tell the vicar general to find a better line. What he's trying to do, obviously, is protect the pope."

Referring both to this case and also to reports of sex abuse cases linked to the Regensburger Domspatzen choir, directed for 30 years by the pope's brother, Mgr Georg Ratzinger, Vatican senior spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi argued at the weekend that the pope had been the victim of a media witch-hunt. "There have been those who have tried, with a certain aggressive persistence, in Regensburg and Munich, to look for elements to personally involve the Holy Father (i.e., the Pope) in the matter of abuses . . . It is clear that these attempts have failed."

Diocese of Regensburg

Peter Kramer (priest) , parish priest of Riekofen, Bavaria, was convicted of sexual abuse of minors in 2003. The priest was already convicted to a jail sentence and damages for multiple abuse of a minor in 2000.Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests has criticized Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, current prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for having reinstated the priest in parish work after he had been convicted in 2000 for child sexual abuse crimes. Mueller has apologized for his mishandling of the case.

In 2016 Fritz Wallner, a former chair of the lay diocesan council in Regensburg, Germany, alleged in an interview with the German weekly Die Zeit that Cardinal Müller "systematically" thwarted the investigation of abuse in the "Regensburger Domspatzen" boys' choir while he served as bishop of Regensburg. The choir was run from 1964 to 1994 by Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, the brother of Pope Benedict XVI. Müller insisted that neither the church nor its bishops were responsible for abusers. In February 2012 he told the news agency dpa: "If a schoolteacher abuses a child, it is not the school nor the Ministry of Education that are to blame." Rather, he maintained, it is only the perpetrator who is to blame. In 2016 a 12-member commission was created to address the history of abuse and cover-up in the boys' choir, which critics view as a long-overdue effort by the church to address a scandal that has been most troublesome to the Vatican in the last decade because it is associated with the brother of former Pope Benedict. Fritz Wallner has called for the church to purge anyone linked to Gerhard Ludwig Müller, who oversaw the handling of the allegations.

Canisius-Kolleg Berlin

In 2004 and 2005 two former students of the school told the headmaster of the school that they had been sexually abused by two of their former teachers. In December 2009 and January 2010 two other boys contacted the headmaster and claimed the same about the same teachers. The headmaster decided to write a letter to all former students in which he stated that he was deeply sorry for what happened. After receiving the letter several others of the former students contacted the headmaster and said that they - too - had been abused.

The names of the former students claiming to be sexually abused have been withheld from the public, but the public was told many of them were notable scientist or held political or economic positions of power. It was also revealed that some of the alumni, who had been abused decided to send their children to the Canisius-Kolleg. One of the teachers has spoken out and said the allegations made against him were true, because he really had abused boys. The teachers might not be sued for what they did, because it seems that in most cases the time limit for pressing trial has passed, but the abused boys want them to apologize.

Kolleg Sankt Blasien

In 2010, Padre Wolfgang S admitted to several acts of sexual abuse of minors during his years as a teacher in Sankt Blasius from 1982 to 1984. Prior to that he had taught in another Jesuit college in Berlin (Canisius-Kolleg) where he had also molested children. The order in 2010 conceded that upon discovery, his superiors provided help him to emigrate to South America. Other cases of sexual abuse of minors in the Jesuit order have also been reported lately and are being investigated. As of February 2010, it seems that all cases have become time-barred.

Wolfgang S., who currently lives in South America, claimed that he had informed his Jesuit superiors of his dark past in 1991.

The German Society of Jesus apologized and asked the victims for forgiveness for what happened at the Canisius-Kolleg Berlin and the Kolleg St. Blasien. The Vatican supported the apology.

Great Britain

Abuse affairs have also affected several British dioceses.

Diocese of Arundel and Brighton

In July 2000 the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Archbishop Cormac Murphy-O'Connor (later a cardinal), acknowledged he had made a mistake while he was Bishop of Arundel and Brighton in the 1980s by allowing a pedophile to carry on working as a priest. The priest at the center of the controversy, Father Michael Hill, was jailed in 1997 for abusing nine boys over a 20-year period.

Diocese of Plymouth

Archdiocese of Cardiff

Kiltegan Fathers

Jeremiah McGrath of the Kiltegan Fathers was convicted in Liverpool in May 2007 for facilitating abuse by Billy Adams. McGrath had given Adams £20,000 in 2005 and Adams had used the money to impress a 12-year-old girl who he then raped over a six-month period. McGrath denied knowing about the abuse but admitted having a brief sexual relationship with Adams. His appeal in January 2008 was dismissed.

Diocese of Middlesbrough

James Carragher, principal of the former St. William's residential school, Market Weighton owned by the Diocese of Middlesbrough, was jailed for 14 years in 2004 for abusing boys in his care over a 20-year period. The principle and the chaplain (Anthony McCallen) at the school were both given prison sentences in 2016. The sentencing judge said:

The victims were effectively trapped and there was no escape from you. They were confused, frightened and in turmoil. It has blighted their lives and each of you had contributed significantly to their misery. [Victims endured] severe long-term, continuing psychological harm as a result of what you did

Over 200 former pupils at St William's say they were abused there. Many former pupils are suing for compensation. The school catered for boys with emotional and behavioural problems.

Archdiocese of Birmingham

Father Alexander Bede Walsh was sentenced to 22 years in prison in March 2012 for serious paedophile offenses against boys. Walsh used religion to control his young victims, telling one boy that drinking alcohol would get him to heaven, and another believed that the abuse was the hand of God touching him, for example. One young victim was driven to a suicide attempt. Walsh had a previous conviction for computer indecency.

James Robinson worked in parishes in the English Midlands and when an accusation of child abuse happened in the 1980s, the Roman Catholic Church allowed him to escape to the United States though they knew about an "unwholesome relationship" the priest had with a boy. Robinson remained free for over 20 years till in the first decade of the 21st century he was extradited back to the UK to face charges. Robinson has received a 21-year prison sentence for multiple paedophile offenses. The Roman Catholic Church paid Robinson up to £800 per month despite knowing the allegations against him.

There are widespread accusations of physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse of unprotected children at Father Hudson Home, Coleshill, Warwickshire. There are even allegations that vulnerable children disappeared inexplicably. According to reports, priests and nuns were the perpetrators.

Diocese of Shrewsbury

In December 2012, staff at the Christian Brothers school St Ambrose College, Altrincham, were implicated in a child sex abuse case involving teaching staff carrying out alleged acts of abuse both on and off school grounds, although no current staff are said to be involved. More than fifty former pupils contacted police, either as victims of, or witnesses to, sexual abuse. The alleged sexual abuse, including molestation of children while corporal punishment was administered, stemmed from 1962 onwards and continued over four decades.

Scotland

Child sex abuse has affected many different Scottish diocese and the credibility of the Church has been damaged. Some Catholics lost faith due to the scandal.

One notable case was an unnamed woman many times locked in a darkened room by a sexually abusive nun who was her carer. Aged 8 she told a priest about the abuse during Confessions. After that the priest and the nun raped her together. There are allegations that at Fort Augustus Abbey there were physical beating, verbal humiliation and sexual abuse. Carlkemp prep school, a feeder school preparing younger pupils for Fort Augustus is also implicated. The Guardian and the BBC both reported complaints that the Scottish Church hierarchy did not cooperate fully over investigations of child sex abuse. Alan Draper of Dundee University accused the Scottish Catholic Church of reluctance to expose priests leading double lives including those accused of sex abuse. Draper revealed bishops knew of 20 cases from 1985 to 1995 but refused to bring in experts. Draper wants relevant files given to a judicial enquiry. Public offers of support from the Church for abuse victims are met with private lack of support and an adversarial attitude when legal action is involved. Draper alleges this contrasts with protection, therapy and financial help traditionally provided for abusers. Draper commented, "The latest statement makes no mention of assessing what support has been provided to survivors. It is window dressing yet again. They have learned nothing."

Victims describe The McLellan Report into child sex abuse as a whitewash. The McLellan Report fails to state which bishops and priests were responsible over decades of child sex abuse and in Scotland, which members of the hierarchy knew about abuse without acting, and ordered victims not to be supported. Some guilty priests will be given the job of introducing safeguards in their parishes while it is feared denial and corruption will continue in the Church. Flaws in the procedures for addressing sexual abuse highlighted in the report include different rules and standards in different dioceses and lack of central guidance on sanctions, abuse victims being left out when central policies were drafted and disregarding United Nations definitions of abuse. There was a culture of cover-up where words were not met with actions.

Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh

Complaints were made that Cardinal Keith O'Brien was guilty of predatory sexual acts against various junior clerics. O'Brien admitted unspecified sexual misconduct.

Ireland

Several priests who abused children in the United States were Irish National, notably Patrick Colleary, Anthony O'Connell and Oliver O'Grady.

Diocese of Cloyne

In 2008, the Irish government referred two allegations of child sex abuse to the National Board for Child Protection, an independent supervisory body established by the Irish bishops. Bishop John Magee had failed to implement self-regulatory procedures agreed by the bishops of Ireland in 1996. Magee apologised to the victims after a report compiled by the Health Service Executive (HSE) found his diocese had put children at risk of harm through an "inability" to respond appropriately to abuse allegations.

Archdiocese of Dublin

Father Paul McGennis, Dublin, Ireland. He abused M Collins when as a 13-year-old she was in Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in 1961. Collins was later told that McGennis had admitted abusing children. However the Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin, Desmond Connell, refused "on legal advice" to supply his file on McGennis to the Irish police. McGennis was nevertheless convicted and gaoled. Collins subsequently received an apology from Cardinal Connell.

An unnamed woman going by the name of 'Irene Kelly' complains of continual physical and sexual abuse by nuns at a Dublin orphanage from the age of 6 to 11. She considers the abuse which happened during the 1960s, "cruelty beyond belief". 'Kelly' also witnessed babies being treated cruelly.

Diocese of Ferns

The Ferns Inquiry 2005 - On 22 October 2005 a government-commissioned report compiled by a former Irish Supreme Court judge delivered an indictment of the handling of clerical sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns. The report revealed over one hundred cases of child sex abuse in the diocese, involving a number of clergymen, including Monsignor Micheál Ledwidth, the former head of the National Catholic seminary, Maynooth College.

Archdiocese of Tuam

An eight-year (1999–2007) enquiry and report by Doctor Elizabeth Healy and Doctor Kevin McCoy into the Brothers of Charity Congregation's "Holy Family School" in Galway, the major city of the archdiocese, and two other locations was made public in December 2007. 11 brothers and 7 other staff members were alleged to have abused 121 intellectually disabled children in residential care in the period 1965-1998.

Diocese of Raphoe

The current Bishop of Derry, Séamus Hegarty, was Bishop of the Diocese of Raphoe in 1982–1994, at a time when one of his priests, Father Eugene Greene, raped 26 young men.

Italy

Diocese of Bolzano-Brixen

In 2008, an Italian priest was condemned by an Italian court of appeal to seven and a half years in prison for the sexual abuse of a 9 year old child. The abuse took place during a church organized summer camp. Damages in the amount of €700,000 were also levied.

Diocese of Verona

Three former students have claimed abuse and 65 former students signed statements saying that they or other students were abused by Catholic priests when attending the Antonio Provolo Institute for the Deaf, a Catholic school for deaf children in Verona, Italy. The abuse is alleged to have occurred from the 1950s to 1980s, and was reportedly conducted by 24 priests including the late bishop of Verona.

Malta

84 allegations of child abuse have been made to the church from 1999 to 2010.

Archdiocese of Malta

Father Anthony Mercieca, who was accused by former Florida Congressman Mark Foley of molesting him as a teenager, now lives in Malta.

Netherlands

The abuse scandal in the Netherlands has affected several Dutch dioceses.

In 2012, press reports indicated that in the 1950s, officials in the Dutch Church took retribution against ten children who reported sexual abuse by having them surgically castrated. Due to the passage of time and loss of records, only one victim could be identified by name.

Cases of sexual abuse by religious members of the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands can since 1995 be notified to a central Church institution, called Secretariaat Rooms-Katholiek Kerkgenootschap (SRRK).

In 2011 the Deetman Commission, acting on the 2010 request of the Dutch Episcopal Conference and the Dutch Religious Conference, reported on its inquiry into abuse cases from 1945 to 2010 affecting children entrusted to the care of the church in the Netherlands.

Diocese of Den Bosch

Father J. Ceelen, pastor of the parishes of Lieshout and of Mariahout (municipality of Laarbeek) quits his post after allegations of sexual abuse on 1 September 2005.

Diocese of Roermond

Father H.H.M. Jansen is denounced for sexual abuse during his activities as military pastor and as a faculty member of the seminary of Rolduc.

Diocese of Rotterdam

Salesians

In February 2010 the Salesians were accused of sexual abuse in their juvenate Don Rua in 's-Heerenberg. Salesian bishop of Rotterdam van Luyn pleaded for a thorough investigation.

Territorial Prelature of Trondheim

Georg Müller SS.CC., a former Catholic Bishop of the Roman Catholic Territorial Prelature of Trondheim in Trondheim, Norway, has admitted to sexually abusing an altar boy in the 1980s when he served as a priest there. Mueller, who retired as bishop in 2009, said there were no other victims.

As of April 2010 Norway's catholic church had reported 18 pedophilia cases.

Poland

During 2013 reports of a succession of child sex abuse scandals within the church, some of which reached the courts, and the poor response by the church, became a matter of public concern. Responding to criticism of the church President of the Polish Episcopal Conference, Archbishop Jozef Michalik, said "Often that inappropriate approach or abuse is released when the child is looking for love. It clings, it seeks. It loses itself and also draws in that second person." This comment was heavily criticised, and Michalik apologised for it. The church resisted demands to pay compensation to victims.

Archdiocese of Poznan

In March 2002 Archbishop Juliusz Paetz quit following accusations, which he denied, of sexually molesting young priests.

Diocese of Plock

In early 2007, allegations surfaced that former Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus was aware that several priests in his former diocese of Plock were sexually abusing minors.

Archdiocese of Ljubljana

Franc Frantar was detained in 2006 for sexual abuse of up to 16 minors. He was later sentenced to three and a half years in prison. He initially escaped persecution by escaping to Malawi to work there as a missionary, but returned to Slovenia after an Interpol warrant was issued.

Spain

Society of Jesus

The Jesuits have also been affected by abuse affairs in several of their schools and congregations in the United States and Germany. The same abusive teacher in Germany had been guilty of similar crimes in Jesuit schools in Chile and Spain.

Diocese of Stockholm

One child (name and sex undisclosed) was sexually abused by a priest over several years in the late 1950s. When the child raised the issue at the time, the church protected the priest and kept the abuse quiet. The victim finally reported the abuse to the Stockholm diocese in December 2005. The victim demanded a public apology from the church. In June 2007 Sweden's Catholic church made a public apology in two newspapers. The abuse caused considerable suffering and lasting damage over the life of the victim.

Sweden generally

Three other priests are confirmed abusers but a fourth suspected case is unconfirmed.