4 SUSANNE WENGER A research team from the University of Zurich led by historians Monika Dommann and Marietta Meier spent one year combing through church archives in all Switzerland’s language regions. The researchers viewed tens of thousands of pages of previously confidential records and conducted many interviews. The conclusions of the pilot study published in September were devastating. Evidence was uncovered of a broad spectrum of cases of abuse ranging from problematic boundary violations to severe, systematic abuse over a period of years. The study uncovered 1,002 cases of abuse, 510 accused and 921 abused persons dating from the mid-20th century onwards. Three-quarters of the victims were minors and slightly over half of them were male. The accused looked the other way, played down or covered up what was happening. There were many instances of priests who had been accused or found guilty simply being transferred (see box). This enabled the perpetrators to reoffend. The church prioritised its own interests over protecting its members, argue the researchers. The research team consider the cases covered in the report as the tip of the iceberg, as there are still many records under lock and key, for example at the Apostolic Nunciature (the diplomatic representation of the Vatican in Switzerland). The study was commissioned in 2021 by Catholic Church bodies in Switzerland, including the Swiss Bishops’ Conference and the Central Conference of the Roman Catholic Church, a type of umbrella association of cantonal churches under public law. The Swiss investigation The church protected the perpetrators, not the victims An academic study has for the first time established the facts relating to sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Switzerland over the past 70 years. The rank and file are up in arms. Church leaders have come under pressure, and the country’s largest official church is in crisis. were almost all men, mainly priests working as ministers or curates, such as vicars or chaplains, in parishes. According to the researchers, the most conducive situation to an attack was “social spaces with specific power constellations”: pastoral work, serving as altar boys, religious instruction, youth associations, Catholic homes and boarding schools. Transferred instead of suspended Sexual abuse has never been the exclusive preserve of the Catholic Church and clergy are not generally speaking under suspicion. Nonetheless, the 136-page report reveals how irresponsibly the church handled the abuse. Canon law, which has long classed sexual abuse of minors as a serious criminal offence, was largely bypassed. Church officials instead Photo Keystone Swiss Review / January 2024 / No.1 Focus
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