SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Swiss bishops plan new tribunal after sexual abuse revelations

Following shocking sexual abuse revelations within Switzerland's Catholic Church, the Catholic dioceses' coordinating body said Saturday it planned to create a tribunal to discipline clergy members who break ecclesiastic law.

Swiss bishops plan new tribunal after sexual abuse revelations
(Photo by Miguel MEDINA / AFP)

The Bishops’ Conference of Switzerland said it was “devastated” after a study identified almost a thousand victims and widespread efforts to cover up abuse.

In a statement, it said it had determined concrete measures to strengthen safeguards and help ensure victims are heard and they and their families receive justice and are supported.

Among the key measures, the conference said it wanted to “create an ecclesiastic criminal and disciplinary tribunal for the Church of Switzerland”.

“Swiss criminal laws will of course continue to prevail and criminal prosecutorial authorities will always be solicited for any cases of abuse or other infractions committed in the ecclesiastic setting,” it stressed.

The new tribunal, it said, would instead handle sanctions needed against members of the clergy who violate ecclesiastic law.

The conference said it was in the process of setting up a meeting with Vatican authorities about how to bring the tribunal into being.

The statement comes after results were released earlier this month from a year-long inquiry by researchers at the University of Zurich, identifying 921 victims of sexual abuse within the Church since 1950.

The study also determined that most cases either went unreported or documents containing information were destroyed.

The study, which will be completed by a further three-year research campaign, comes after similar efforts to uncover clerical abuse in other parts of the world.

According to the initial findings, 74 percent of victims were children, while a total of 510 people, almost all men, were found to have committed the abuse.

The Conference of Bishops also announced a separate investigation earlier this month following accusations that four current and two former bishops had covered up cases of sexual abuse by clergy.

Saturday’s statement said that in addition to the planned tribunal, the conference was working towards creating a national centre tasked with receiving and gathering victim accounts.

It also guaranteed that researchers would have access to all the necessary archives, and that no further documents would be destroyed.

And it said it was standardising a requirement for an in-depth psychological evaluation for all seminary, clergy and layman positions.

“In the face of the abuse and the suffering that has taken place, the Swiss Bishops will never be able to do enough,” Saturday’s statement acknowledged.

“Continually adapting procedures to render justice to victims and to ensure abuse does not happen again is therefore a top priority.”

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

Mystery persists as missing Swiss paintings reappear

One of the Switzerland's top art museums announced Sunday the return of two paintings that went missing last year, refusing to provide details in a case still under investigation.

Mystery persists as missing Swiss paintings reappear

Kunsthaus Zurich offered in June 2023 a reward of 10,000 Swiss francs ($11,100) for information that could help it track one painting by Flemish painter Robert van den Hoecke and another by the Dutch Golden Age artist Dirck de Bray.

The small paintings disappeared when the Kunsthaus took down more than 700 works for cleaning and restoration after a fire broke out in August 2022.

But no trace of the two paintings could later be found.

On Sunday, the museum said only that its restoration experts had confirmed both paintings were in “good condition”, with no indication of how or when they turned up.

Because of ongoing police inquiries, “no further information will be released for the time being,” the Kunsthaus said.

Museum officials had alerted the missing works to the Art Loss Register, the world’s largest database of lost and stolen pieces.

SHOW COMMENTS