The topic of abuse came up again and again in the debate on the Justice Ministry's budget on Thursday. Several members of the CDU/CSU objected to blanket attacks on the Catholic Church. And Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger struck conciliatory tones.
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger praised Munich Archbishop Reinhard Marx's push before the Bundestag for stricter church guidelines against sexual abuse. The minister reiterated the need for society as a whole to come to terms with past cases and to ensure better prevention. The minister emphasized that her concern with the ie of abuse had been to enforce the state's right to punish from the very beginning. She called it "quite important" to give the information to the public prosecutor's office in the case of clues "that become somewhat solidified". Union speakers addressed the handling of the Catholic Church and vehemently affirmed that abuse is not an ecclesiastical problem, but a societal one. Most cases occur in the family environment. Alexander Funk (CDU) deplored "infamous" attempts to portray the church as an institution in which the abuse of children is virtually inevitable. It would be just as infamous to ascribe joint responsibility to the Greens simply because a working group of the party had advocated sex with minors in 1985. Green parliamentary group leader Renate Kunast makes "unbearable" comments on the role of the church, he said. His party colleague Michael Grosse-Bromer urged punishment of perpetrators as criminals and pleaded for longer statutes of limitations. He also objected to the impression that it is a problem of the Catholic Church. In contrast, the Green politician Christian Strobele said that there was certainly abuse in many different institutions. But the decisive factor is how the church deals with criticism. "In many cases, strong criticism is in order there."Christine Lambrecht (SPD) referred to demands of her parliamentary group to extend the statute of limitations in civil law to 30 years and in criminal law to 20 years. At the same time, she affirmed that politics should not only rely on generalities and round tables. Thus an investigation commission in the Bundestag is necessary, which should determine the extent of cases barred by the statute of limitations and report publicly on it. CSU legal politician Stephan Mayer from Altotting stressed that there must be zero tolerance for "terrible, inhumane, barbaric misdeeds. The Catholic Church had to fulfill its responsibility and would do so. He rated the decision of the Bavarian bishops as outstanding.