“Only the tip of the iceberg” – that is how the authors of a Swiss study described their findings on sexual abuse in the Church. The practice of destroying files, covering up offences and playing them down had prevailed for a long time.
At least 921 people have been sexually abused in the Catholic Church in Switzerland, according to pilot study presented on Tuesday by the Historical Seminar of the University of Zurich.
Systematic abuses
However, its authors said this was probably only “the tip of the iceberg”. They identified 1,002 cases and 510 suspected offenders dating back to the middle of the 20th century. The spectrum ranged from “the problematic overstepping of boundaries to the most serious, systematic abuses that lasted for years”, they said.
The researchers also investigated the handling of sexual abuse cases by Catholic officials as well as the availability and informative value of files. They said this work had laid the foundations for further research.
The study was commissioned by the Swiss Bishops’ Conference, the Conference of Religious Orders and the Roman Catholic Central Conference of Switzerland (RKZ), the Church organisation of the cantons.
Victims
The suspects were almost exclusively men. In 39 percent of the cases, the victims were female and in 56 percent male. In the remaining cases, the gender could not be clearly determined from the files. Seventy-four percent of the files that were analysed dealt with the sexual abuse of minors; 14 percent concerned adult victims and in 12 percent of the cases it was unclear what age the victims were.
The abuse mainly happened in pastoral care, in the field of religious education, in religious orders and in new spiritual communities with their particular power structures. Cases occurred in confessional conversations, in the altar boy service and in religious education classes. The authors of the study noted that in many cases, Church criminal law was hardly applied.
There were many instances in which Church officials had covered up or denied the facts. Clerics who had been accused of abuse or found guilty of it were transferred, sometimes even abroad. A fundamental change in such practices was only detected in the 21st century, the authors said.
Tip of the iceburg
The project is the first systematic attempt to record and outline sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Switzerland in a scholarly way. “The cases identified are undoubtedly only the tip of the iceberg,” said the two heads of the investigation, Monika Dommann and Marietta Meier. Previous research suggested that only a small proportion of incidents were ever reported, they added.
Moreover, it had not been possible to examine all the records in the one-year pilot study. For example, many files of religious orders, diocesan committees and Catholic schools and homes had yet to be reviewed. Two Swiss dioceses were found to have destroyed relevant files. There was also evidence that not all reports of abuse had been written down and archived.
Investigating
The Vatican is currently investigating several current and former Swiss bishops as well as other clerics for their handling of sexual abuse. The bishops are mainly accused of covering up cases of abuse. Some individuals are accused of having committed sexual offences themselves.
In June, the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops, responding to a request by the papal nunciature in Switzerland, initiated a preliminary investigation under canon law and appointed Bishop Joseph Bonnemain of Chur as its head.
According to the tabloid newspaper SonntagsBlick, four of the accused bishops are still in office and two are retired. For the time being, the presumption of innocence applies to all of them. The findings of the investigation are to be available by the end of the year.
Originally reported by KNA Germany.
