In May, Osnabruck's Bishop Franz-Josef Bode will visit parishes affected by cases of abuse that have come to light in recent months. On four visits he will face the conversation.
Bishop Bode will celebrate services in the respective churches and then face the conversation with parishioners, the diocese of Osnabruck announced on Monday. In essence, the allegations against two clergymen, it was said. The acts are said to have occurred from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Bode visits on 5. May Osterbrock and on 10. May Meppen. Both parishes in the Emsland district had a clergyman who has since died. In March, a man had turned to the press alleging that the priest had abused him in the 1960s in what was then the boys' convict in Meppen. The clergyman and head of the convict was subsequently active in Hagen am Teutoburger Wald as well as in Osterbrock in Emsland.
Visits to Osterbrock, Meppen, Hagen-Gellenbeck and Merzen
On 12. May will Bode in Hagen-Gellenbeck and on 26. May in Merzen in the district Osnabruck expects. As the diocese made public in December, a priest, now 85 years old, had sexually abused several children in Merzen and other places between the 1970s and 1990s. The man who admitted his deeds later also lived in Hagen am Teutoburger Wald.
In addition, Bode reportedly travels to Meppen. There, at the beginning of March, the previous provost had asked the bishop to release him from priestly service due to the abandonment of celibacy.