However, the cardinal will take a break from mid-October until the beginning of Lent, as the Vatican announced. The Pope accuses Woelki of major communication errors.
The Pope also refused the offer of resignation from office by the two auxiliary bishops of Cologne, Ansgar Puff and Dominikus Schwaderlapp.
Puff will return to his service immediately, Schwaderlapp will initially work as a pastor in Kenya for a year. After the Pope had previously rejected the resignation of Hamburg’s Archbishop Stefan Heße for misconduct during his time in Cologne, the misconduct of the Cologne clergy in dealing with cases of abuse, identified in an expert report, has no personal consequences. The Vatican’s letter states that claims that Woelki wanted to cover up have been refuted. He also shows determination to come to terms with the crimes of abuse.
At the same time, Pope Woelki accuses “big mistakes” at the level of communication. His approach in the overall reappraisal, but above all at the level of communication, had “significantly” contributed to “the fact that there was a crisis of confidence in the archdiocese that disturbed many believers”.
