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ABUSE

Third Catholic teacher admits to sexual abuse in Barcelona

A third teacher at a school run by a Roman Catholic order in Barcelona has confessed to having sexually abused students in a video released Monday, deepening one of Spain's biggest paedophile scandals.

Third Catholic teacher admits to sexual abuse in Barcelona
Stock image of rosary and bible. Photo: Roger Smith / Flickr

The man, who is in his 70s and was identified only by his initials A.F., can be heard in the video recorded with a hidden camera apologising to one of the victims he abused in the 1980s.

“I don't know why I did it…it was like a child's game,” he says in the video posted on the website of Barcelona-based daily newspaper El Periodico de Catalunya which masked his face.

The victim said he was sexually abused by the former teacher dozens of times when he was 8-14 years old. His allegations were not refuted by the former teacher.

The abuse took place at a Marist school in Les Corts, a Barcelona neighbourhood, at the centre of a paedophile scandal which erupted in February after the paper published the confession of a former gym teacher who said he had sexually abused his students.

The teacher spoke to the newspaper before being questioned by a judge who is investigating complaints of sexual abuse filed by five families against him.  

The newspaper article triggered a wave of fresh complaints. There are now a total of 29 complaints against six former teachers from three Marist schools in Barcelona.

Three of the former teachers, including the man featured in the video released on Monday, have confessed.

The Archbishop of Barcelona, Juan Jose Omella, apologised to the victims,  in an interview published on Sunday in El Periodico de Catalunya.

The Marist community – a Roman Catholic teaching order – did not know of the abuse until now and followed the protocols in place as to how to deal with such cases, he added.

The scandal has caused outrage in Spain, where there have been few sexual abuse scandals involving the Church.

The biggest case to date erupted at the end of 2014 when a former altar boy complained of having been molested as a child by priests in the southern city of Cordoba, in a case which drew the attention of Pope Francis who was vowed “zero” tolerance for paedophilia.

Ten Catholic priests and two laymen were initially charged over the case, although eventually charges were dropped against all but one of them, on the grounds that too much time had passed since the alleged crimes took place.

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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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