The German Bishops' Conference has so far received 579 applications for compensation from victims of sexual abuse. Of these, the responsible coordinating body has discussed "as good as all" and advocated compensation, said conference spokesman Matthias Kopp on Wednesday in Bonn. Now it's the turn of the dioceses.
In 560 cases, the commission had endorsed compensation and had passed on a recommendation to that effect to religious orders and dioceses. It said there were applications where the recommended sum exceeded the original limit of 5.000 euros. The final decision now rests with the respective orders and dioceses, Kopp stressed.
The "Suddeutsche Zeitung" (Wednesday) had previously drawn an interim balance of the application procedure. Accordingly, victims' associations ame "significantly more than 2.000 people out, to whom in the past decades as children and young people violence in the area of the Catholic Church happened". This would mean that so far less than a third of those entitled to compensation have applied, the newspaper said.
Higher compensationmme in special cases
As the first institution affected by the abuse scandal, the Catholic Church had decided in early March to pay financial compensation to victims. Church institutions want to give victims of sexual assault up to 5.000 euros if they can no longer enforce their claims in court due to the statute of limitations. In addition, under certain conditions, the church will pay the costs of psychotherapy. In particularly serious cases, a higher compensation may be paid.
To receive such compensation, the victims must submit a written application. Required to sign an affidavit stating that they were victims of sexual assault by church employees when they were minors or wards of the church. The requests will go to a "central coordination office" based at the German Bishops' Conference's "Office for Questions of Sexual Abuse of Minors in the Church Sector" in Bonn. The panel includes psychologists, lawyers and theologians. The recommendations of the commission go to the respective orders and dioceses.