The diocese selected Friday to take down the larger-than-life statue of Hengsbach, which had been unveiled in 2011. On Monday morning, a crane lifted it onto a truck, as reported by the German information company dpa. The statue can be positioned in storage. Supply: AP
A statue of a late German cardinal was taken down from its spot outdoors Essen Cathedral in western Germany on Monday. This occurred only a few days after previous accusations of sexual abuse got here to gentle. The allegations in opposition to Cardinal Franz Hengsbach, who handed away in 1991, added to the continued scandal of abuse inside the German church by clergy.
Final week, the Essen diocese talked about that there have been considerations that Hengsbach might need mistreated a 16-year-old woman within the Fifties when he was an assistant bishop in close by Paderborn. It was additionally claimed {that a} lady accused him of misconduct in 1967 when he was the bishop of Essen, a place he held for 33 years.
In a letter despatched to the parishes and made public on Friday, the present Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck apologized for his errors in dealing with these accusations. He confessed that he had discovered of 1 accusation again in 2011 however did nothing about it, because the Vatican had determined it was not plausible.
“I now have to admit that we got it wrong in 2011, and those who were affected were treated unfairly,” he wrote. One other accusation that got here to his consideration in March led church officers to revisit the case.
The diocese selected Friday to take down the larger-than-life statue of Hengsbach, which had been unveiled in 2011. On Monday morning, a crane lifted it onto a truck, as reported by the German information company dpa. The statue can be positioned in storage.
In 2018, a report commissioned by the church revealed that no less than 3,677 people had skilled abuse by clergy in Germany between 1946 and 2014. Over half of the victims have been 13 years previous or youthful, and almost a 3rd had served as altar boys.
(With enter from businesses)