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ABUSE

Preschool teacher held for alleged sexual abuse

A preschool teacher at an independent Christian school in Jönköping in south central Sweden is in custody on suspicions of having sexually abused several children.

“It concerns crimes which were committed against several children on different occasions. The crimes took place in Jönköping,” prosecutor Anna Mårtensson said in a statement on Wednesday morning.

The teacher, a man in his forties, is suspected of having abused four children at the school, which has pupils between one and five years old.

The crimes were first reported on October 20th and the man was arrested three days later.

He has since had three remand hearings, the latest of which was held on Tuesday, to keep him in custody while prosecutors pursued their investigation.

A spokesperson for the organization behind the preschool told the Jönköpingsnytt news website that he is distraught over the allegations against the man, who was immediately suspended from his job when the suspicions of alleged abuse came to light.

The man has been active in the organization for which he worked.

All parents of children at the school have been informed, and both they and personnel at the school have been offered counselling support to deal with the situation.

During the investigation, new suspicions have come to light, including child pornography.

Prosecutors are expected to hold a press conference on the case later on Wednesday.

RELIGION

Tensions mount in German Catholic Church over abuse report

Pressure increased on Friday on a powerful German Catholic archbishop who has for months blocked the publication of a report about alleged sexual abuse of minors by members of his diocese.

Tensions mount in German Catholic Church over abuse report
Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, Archbishop of Koin, at the autumn plenary assembly of the German Bishops' Conference in the City Palace. September 2020: Picture alliance / DPA | Arne Dedert

In a rare public rebuke, the diocese council of the western city of Cologne, which groups clergy and laypeople, sharply criticised Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelki, saying he had “completely failed as a moral authority”.

“We find ourselves in the biggest crisis that the Church has ever experienced,” Tim Kurzbach, head of the council, said in a statement.

“Those responsible must finally also take responsibility. We need clarity now. Otherwise we have no chance of getting out of this misery.”

Woelki, a conservative who has resisted Church reform efforts, has faced criticism for months for refusing to allow the publication of an independent study on abuse committed by clergy in his diocese, the country's largest, between 1975 and 2018.

Victims have expressed anger and disappointment about his stance.

Woelki has justified his decision by citing a right to privacy of the alleged perpetrators accused in the report, carried out by a Munich law firm, and what he called a lack of independence on the part of some researchers.   

In early November, the diocese of the western city of Aachen published its own study prepared by the same law firm.

A study commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference and released in 2018 showed that 1,670 clergymen had committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors, mostly boys, between 1946 and 2014.

However its authors said the actual number of victims was almost certainly much higher.

The revelations, which mirror paedophile scandals in Australia, Chile, France, Ireland and the United States, prompted Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a prominent reformer, to apologise on behalf of the German Catholic Church.

The Church currently pays victims an average sum of 5,000 euros ($6,067) “in recognition of their suffering”, as well as covering their therapy fees.

In September 2020, German bishops agreed that victims would be entitled to payouts of up to €50,000 each and an independent committee would be set up to examine complaints and decide on payouts from January 1st, 2021.

READ ALSO: German Catholic Church to pay abuse victims up to €50,000

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