Good news from Rome for Woelki: From the point of view of the Vatican, the Cologne cardinal did everything right when it came to financing two reports and an external PR consultancy. A canon lawyer sees it differently.
The Vatican has fully backed Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki on a controversial financial issue. It was about the financing of two expert reports on how diocese officials deal with allegations of sexual abuse and external PR advice.
The costs totaled 2.8 million euros, of which 820,000 went to PR advice. Woelki had taken the money from a special fund that does not come from church tax funds. The money that the Archdiocese of Cologne pays out to victims of sexual abuse also comes from this fund.
Procedure OK?
The head of the Vatican Bishops’ Congregation, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, certified Woelki in a letter that his actions were completely in order. Woelki is authorized “to freely dispose of the funds’ funds,” said Ouellet in a letter that the German Press Agency was able to see. It was also not necessary to consult the committees of the archdiocese. “Since there is consequently no crime, there is no reason for canonical consequences,” concludes Ouellet, who is considered one of the most powerful men in the Vatican.
“This is of course good news from Rome,” said Woelki on Tuesday. Hopefully it will help calm things down a little in the Archdiocese. During Woelki’s several-month break, which ended in early March, his representative Rolf Steinhäuser contacted the Vatican and asked for the procedure to be reviewed.
“The Vatican issued Woelki a ‘clean bill'”
Violent criticism of the acquittal from Rome came from the well-known canon lawyer Thomas Schüller from Münster. The Vatican issued Woelki a “clean bill of health” that “is not worth the paper it is printed on,” Schüller told the German Press Agency. The money from the fund should never have been used for expensive PR agencies and overpriced law firms. In this way, the Vatican makes itself “the henchman of the cardinal and his entourage”. Schüller’s conclusion: “A rarely embarrassing process for the Roman Curia.”
The reform movement “We are Church” criticized the decision of the Vatican as “extremely irritating”. Even if Woelki in this case should have had sole power of disposal over the special fund from a purely canon law perspective, his actions are still an expression of an absolutist understanding of office that no longer fits today. “For Cardinal Woelki, this acquittal from the Vatican will be a Pyrrhic victory, which will in no way contribute to calming down the Archdiocese of Cologne,” prophesied “We are Church” spokesman Christian Weisner.
When asked if he would spend another 820,000 euros on PR consulting, Woelki said the archdiocese had found itself in a difficult position following its decision not to publish the first abuse report that he had commissioned. In this situation, the decision was made to seek outside help. It was certainly a mistake not to conclude a blanket contract at the time. In addition, the crisis situation lasted much longer than initially thought. This ultimately led to the high costs.
Source: Stern
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