German bishop acknowledges failures toward abuse victims

A Protestant bishop in the German city of Hanover, Ralf Meister, has acknowledged mistakes in his dealings with victims of sexualized violence, but has ruled out resigning from office.

Speaking to journalists on Friday, the 62-year-old theologian reacted to the report of an independent investigative commission into child abuse in the Christ the King community in the town of Oesede.

A deacon of the parish who died in 2018 is accused of having sexually abused at least eight children, some of them severely.

According to the commission's report, the church covered up the abuse, which was reported to the church by parents in the 1970s. The cases were not even mentioned in the man's letter of dismissal in 1977.

"I contributed to the fact that those affected were still not adequately heard," Meister said.

In the autumn of 2021, a woman using the pseudonym Lisa Meyer reported reported that she had been the victim of serious sexual abuse at the hands of the deacon when she was 11 years old, but the deacon was never prosecuted for the crime.

The commission also found that the regional church office in Hanover had made "serious omissions" in the investigation from 2011 onwards.

Germany's Catholic and Protestant churches have been rocked by revelations in recent years of abuse by clergy and staff at religious institutions as well as allegations of cover-ups.

The EKD, the umbrella organization for Protestant churches in the country, recently released a major independent report on sexual violence in affiliated churches and the EKD's social welfare organization, Diakonie.

"I believe it is important and right for Bishop Meister to resign at this time and I am not alone in this opinion," the woman told dpa on Wednesday.

Meister said that he had decided to remain in office after weighing up the situation and examining his conscience, despite the mistakes he had made.

Asked whether he was not harming the Protestant churches by doing so, he said: "You don't decide the question of credibility yourself, others decide the question of credibility."

He noted that his position as bishop is decided in elections, and he can be removed by a vote. He said that his decision could change if other church officials told him that the church's credibility was being endangered by his position.

He acknowledged on Friday that it was "insensitive and wrong" to refer victims of abuse to church legal departments in recent years instead of more directly responding to allegations.