by Markus Pohlmann and Kristina Höly
Much has been reported about the abuse in the Catholic Church and there are now numerous excellent studies on it. The Catholic Church is finally responding. Though hesitant, as became discernable at the end of the four-day crisis-summit in the Vatican, the Pope after all officially warned that the cover-up of the acts of abuse in the Catholic Church must be put to an end. Still, it remains a riddle why the Church did not simply reassign the suspected priests to administration or a convent, but often into new churches – where they again had access to children, to potentially new victims. Sometimes there were even exchanges between the dioceses, according to the motto: I take your problem case, if you help me with another problem or with my problem case. That’s the scandal behind the scandal.
