Processing: Criticism of how abuse is dealt with in the Protestant church

Canon lawyer Thomas Schüller sees failures in dealing with sexual abuse in the Protestant Church. “The Protestant Church is lagging far behind in dealing with abuse in the Catholic Church,” said the Catholic theologian to the German Press Agency. In his view, the sums that are voluntarily paid to victims for injustice suffered are “usually shameful and characterized by narrow-mindedness.” In addition, Schüller criticized the fact that there are rarely “truly independent contact points for those affected” in the Protestant Church.

The federal government’s abuse commissioner, Kerstin Claus, told the dpa that in the Protestant church, too, for years the perpetrator had come before the victim protection. “Those affected were not treated with respect and on an equal footing, but were often treated as supplicants,” criticized Claus.

Results are not expected until the end of 2023 at the earliest

At the end of 2020, the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) commissioned an independent study on sexual violence and other forms of abuse in the area of ​​the EKD and Diakonie. Results of this so-called forum study are expected at the end of 2023 or beginning of 2024.

An EKD spokesman rejected the criticism that the Protestant Church is not yet as far along in coming to terms with it as the Catholic Church. “The comparison cannot be made like that,” said the spokesman in Hanover. Among other things, the forum study is more comprehensive than the MHG study on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church published in 2018. There is also, among other things, the independent central contact point Help for those affected (www.anlaufstelle.help).