In January 2010, Jesuit Father Klaus Mertes, headmaster of the prestigious Jesuit-run Canisius College in Berlin, sent a letter to former students of the school informing them that two former priests had been accused of sexual misconduct with students. In the letter, he wrote that he was deeply shaken and ashamed because he had learned that “systematic abuse had taken place at the school over the years.” (Christa Pongratz-Lippitt, National Catholic Reporter)

Within a week of the letter being made public, 20 other students came forward with stories of sexual abuse by teachers at the school. When the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported the story, even more former students came forward.
Soon a whole series of abuse cases at other well-known Jesuit and Benedictine schools in Germany and in many German dioceses came to light. By spring, the revelations were coming from Austrian and Swiss church institutions.

Since then, 180,000 German and 87,000 Austrian Catholics have formally left the church. German-speaking Catholic Europe was engulfed — in the words of Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn — in a tsunami of clerical abuse.

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Some people in the church aren’t alarmed by the exodus, however, he said. Certain circles actually welcome the fact that thousands are formally leaving the church in Germany. They regard it as “healthy downsizing” that enables “true Catholics” to be among themselves, he said.

Over the last 18 months, Fr Mertes said, he has received masses of hate mail and letters accusing him of being disloyal, of splitting the church and of fouling his nest.

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Only recently a cardinal in the Vatican had said that Mertes ought to be thrown out of the church, Fr Mertes told Der Spiegel.

“I owe everything to the church — my faith, the prayers I pray, the liturgy I celebrate and the Gospel. The values I try to live by are the Gospel values. I will not to allow all that to be taken from me by a small clique of people who by vilifying me think they are doing the church a service,” he said.

“The Catholic church is more than just a circle of mobbing Catholics who act in the dark, who think even the slightest critical remark is disloyal and who denounce people who ask questions. … My big worry is that the hierarchy will listen to them.”

FULL STORY

German Catholics are ‘weary,’ says Jesuit (National Catholic Reporter)

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