(LifeSiteNews) — According to a new study, over 9,000 children and adolescents have been sexually abused within the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) since 1946.
The study was conducted by a team of researchers from several German universities. According to projections, at least 9,355 children and adolescents were sexually abused in the Protestant Church (formerly known in English as the Evangelical Church in Germany) and its charitable organization “Diakonie Deutschland.” There were 3,497 potential perpetrators, of which over a third were pastors or vicars.
The study authors had to use projections because only one of the 20 regional Protestant churches provided personnel data despite a contractual obligation. In its official press release, the EKD only refers to 2,174 victims and 1,259 accused of sexual abuse due to this lack of official data.
According to Harald Dreißig, one of the co-authors of the EKD abuse study, the additional analysis of the personnel files in the one regional church showed that the disciplinary files did not include around 60 percent of those accused of abuse, and 70 percent of victims, which led to the high projections proposed by the study authors. However, Dreißig said that is still only “the tip of the iceberg.” It can be assumed that many cases remain unreported.
Martin Wazlawik, the study’s lead researcher, said that the poor treatment of those affected by sexual abuse was due to the attitude of being “the better church” prevailing in the EKD.
However, with this new study, the narrative that the Catholic Church is more affected by sexual abuse than the EKD is no longer tenable, said Katharina Kracht, one of the representatives for the abuse victims.
According to the study, 64.7 percent of the victims were male and 35.3 percent female. The accused were almost exclusively male (99.6 percent). Around 75 percent of them were married at the time of the first offense. The types of abuses ranged from unnecessary physical contact in sports to forced sexual acts.
The Protestant Church in Germany is a federation of 20 Reformed, Lutheran, and United Protestant churches and has around 20 million members.
Celibacy and Catholic sexual morals not to blame for abuse crisis
The EKD abuse study proves that priestly celibacy, traditional sexual morals, and the “steep” Catholic hierarchy are not primarily to blame for the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, as the “progressive” EKD does not subscribe to any of these principles and still produced more abuse victims than the Catholic Church since World War II. According to the so-called “MHG study” from 2018, there were 3,677 victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Germany since 1946. The 9,355 children and adolescents sexually abused in the Protestant Church, according to the EKD study, far exceed the victims in the Catholic Church.
The EKD study states that the power and authority of pastors was a critical enabling factor for sexual abuse despite a more “egalitarian understanding” of the office compared with the Catholic Church. According to the researchers, the EKD’s self-image of being “fundamentally participative, low-hierarchy and progressive” led to a lack of reflection on power structures.
In the MHG study about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the authors named “clericalism” as one of the factors facilitating abuse. However, it is possible to suffer from so-called “clericalism” without being a cleric, as katholisch.de author Felix Neumann wrote, rendering the term nothing more than a meaningless, anti-Catholic pejorative.
The heretical Synodal Way’s pretext is falling apart
Proponents of the heretical Synodal Way in Germany have been using the prevention of sexual abuse as a pretext to push for the abolition of priestly celibacy, women’s ordinations, and the complete abolition of Catholic sexual morality. The fact that the EKD likely had as many or more sexual abuse victims as the Catholic Church, despite having female and married pastors and more “progressive” sexual morals, shatters the notion that Synodal Path’s “reforms” would prevent future abuses.
Despite the revelation of the EKD study, the proponents of the Synodal Way are still clinging to the same narrative to justify their “reforms.” Fr. Hans Zoller, a Jesuit priest and expert on abuse prevention, admitted that “the structure of the Catholic Church and celibacy cannot be considered the sole cause of abuse.”
He furthermore stressed that “it is too short-sighted to think that married priests or more women in the leadership of the church would in themselves prevent abuse” because the issue “is much more complex.”
Despite these admissions, Zoller still defended the ideas of the Synodal Way, saying that “it is certainly not wrong to think about what has facilitated sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and hindered reappraisal and how this should be changed.” He did not give any further substantial defense of the heretical Synodal Way in this interview.
The real reasons for abuse: homosexuality and pedophilia
Since neither “clericalism,” celibacy, nor Catholic moral teaching can be blamed for the sexual abuse crisis, the burning question of what the real reasons are remains.
Both the Catholic Church and the Protestant ecclesial community have been infiltrated by the poisonous ideas of the Sexual Revolution. Sexual immorality in general, and homosexuality and pedophilia in particular, have entered the churches and corrupted many of its members.
More than 80% of victims abused by Catholic priests were boys, and 64.7% of the victims in the EKD study were male children or adolescents, with the abusers being almost exclusively male. These numbers alone strongly indicate a connection between homosexuality and sexual abuse, especially abuse of boys and teenagers.
READ: Vatican theologian: ‘Clericalism’ is ‘smokescreen’ hiding homosexuality as abuse crisis’ real cause
The possible connection between homosexuality and pedophilic abuse of boys is evidenced by the recent revelation of a German ecumenical pro-LGBT group that showed the organization promoted pedophilia in the past. The group “Homosexuals and Church” (HuK) admitted that it’s positive attitude toward pedophilia was heavily influenced by one of its members, Professor Helmut Kentler, who turned out to be the mastermind behind a state-sponsored pedophile network in Berlin.
Kentler was one of the most respected sexologists of this time, and his ideas found their way into the curricula of public schools in Germany via the so-called “sexual education of diversity,” which promotes homosexuality and views children as “sexual beings.”
READ: World renowned expert: ‘Homo-tyranny is upon us’ in the Catholic Church