Finance Director Markus Reif announced at the Federal Budget Press Conference in Munich that the archdiocese's income fell by €41 million to €617 million.

The German church tax system requires registered church members to pay a tax, usually 8-9% of their income tax, to their respective church. The state collects this tax and then distributes it to the churches.

The tax funds church activities, salaries and social services. Members can opt-out by formally leaving the church, which stops the tax obligation.

The decline in registered parishioners in Munich reflects a nationwide trend. According to the German Bishops' Conference, 522,821 people in Germany left the church last year.

The archdiocese's total revenue for 2023 stood at €856 million, a reduction of €56 million from the previous year. Reif expressed a cautious outlook for future revenues stating the forecast is "rather pessimistic".

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Vicar General Christoph Klingan addressed the need for prioritisation in light of reduced resources.

"What we do, we want to do effectively" Klingan said, referencing projects that benefit society.

The archdiocese Office Manager, Stephanie Herrmann, hinted at cuts in the existing building stock. The aim is to invest resources "primarily in people rather than in stones".

The first pilot projects are already underway. The archdiocese is also investing in future fields such as climate protection.

The diocese's assets, valued at around €3 billion, saw no significant losses. Increased real estate values balanced a decrease in certain investments. The renewed interest rates on investments are expected to help cover financial gaps.

The bulk of the €885 million expenditure in 2023 was on staff costs totalling €327 million. Additionally, €133.6 million in grants was allocated to church foundations to cover personnel expenses.

The archdiocese expects a continued decline in yields for the current year, with revenues projected at €835 million and planned expenses at €909 million.

Reif noted that earmarked reserves formed in previous years would be utilised to manage this shortfall.

Sources

Katholisch

CathNews New Zealand

The lawsuit has been lodged at a German court by a man who accuses him of helping cover up historical abuse.

Back in June, a so-called declaratory action was brought on behalf of a man, then 38-years old. The man said he was abused by a priest as a child.

The complaint names a priest, identified as Peter H.

He also names Benedict, who was Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982, his successor Cardinal Friedrich Wetter and another church official.

The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising has declined to comment on an ongoing case.

A spokesperson for the court confirmed former Pope Benedict would defend himself through a law firm.

The move to defend himself avoids a so-called default ruling from the court.

That does not mean that Benedict, now 95, will appear in court in his defence.

However, a court spokesperson says the court can demand the presence of defendants.

The defendants have until 24 January to respond to the complaint. No date has been set for a hearing.

Andreas Schulz, the lawyer who filed the case, says it sought to establish culpability.

The case argues the Catholic Church and defendants had a Christian duty to acknowledge injustices committed.

"If they don't, the reputational damage will grow and the Catholic Church will hasten the erosion of faith," Schulz says.

A report published in January on sexual abuse in the archdiocese from 1945 to 2019 accused Benedict of failing to take action against clerics in four cases when he was Archbishop of Munich.

Benedict, who resigned as pontiff in 2013, has already acknowledged errors had occurred in the handling of cases while he held that position. He has also asked for forgiveness for these errors.

His lawyers argued that he was not directly to blame.

Source

• Reuters

Msgr Peter Beer, who served from 2010-2020 as vicar general of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, said the horrific details that emerged from a recently published report on sex abuse in the archdiocese are "absolutely plausible".

"It objectively documents what everyone feared and what I myself experienced. Namely, that the Church cannot reappraise itself. That is my own bitter experience," the 56-year-old priest said in a Jan 27 interview published in the German weekly Die Zeit.

"That is why I gave up my job as vicar-general of Munich two years ago. The opposition I faced was too great even for a vicar general," he revealed.

The so-called Munich Report, published Jan 20, exonerated Beer and proved he was strictly against abuse, confirming that his efforts were met with "bitter opposition".

Beer said opposition came from those who felt superior to the rest of society. They were used to judging others without ever being judged themselves and were frightened that their life's work would be destroyed.

Beer served as vicar general under Cardinal Reinhard Marx during the first ten years of the Catholic sexual abuse tsunami that has swept through the German speaking world.

Asked if Cardinal Marx really wanted to clear up the way abuse had been handled in his archdiocese - especially as he chose not to be present at the presentation of the report, Beer paused for a long moment.

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" he then replied.

The Munich Report also accused Benedict XVI of hushing up abuse, but the former pope contradicted the accusation. Beer was asked which version is correct.

"Only Benedict himself has the answer to that," he replied.

And although he faced fierce opposition from a number of senior clerics in Munich for speaking out, Beer does not consider himself a victim of the system.

"No! I am in no way a victim! On the contrary, I am responsible!" he replied.

But he said he now realises that it was naïve to think that the Church could clear up clerical sexual abuse all by itself.

He said the Munich Report, which proved that certain senior clerics had failed to protect the victims, "is unfortunately not only a glimpse into the past but also into the present".

Sources

La Croix International

Vatican Press

CBS News

Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, the law firm compiling the report, announced the delay on Nov. 3, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA's German-language news partner.

The Munich law firm said that the delay was caused by "new findings obtained in the recent past" that required an "intensive review."

The study's official title is "Report on the Sexual Abuse of Minors and Vulnerable Adults by Clerics, as well as [other] Employees, in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising from 1945 to 2019."

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In his letter Francis says he agrees with Marx that Catholic leaders cannot adopt an "ostrich policy" in the face of the clerical sexual abuse crisis.

"If you are tempted to think that, by confirming your mission and not accepting your resignation, this Bishop of Rome (your brother who loves you) does not understand you, think of what Peter felt before the Lord when, in his own way, he presented him with his resignation: ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinner,' and listen to the answer: ‘Shepherd my sheep.'"

"I am moved by the comprehensiveness and the very brotherly tone of his letter and feel how much he understands and has accepted my request. In obedience I accept his decision as I promised him," says Marx.

Nonetheless, he says he is finding the pope's decision to be a great challenge.

"After that, simply going back to the agenda cannot be the way for me and also not for the archdiocese," he says.

Rather than stick with the status quo, Marx says he plans to reflect on "what new ways we can go - even in the face of a history of multiple failures - to proclaim and witness to the Gospel" in the Munich archdiocese.

"The bishop [Francis] is not alone in this and in the next few weeks I will think about how we can together contribute even more to the renewal of the Church here in our archdiocese and as a whole; because the pope takes up much of what I mentioned in my letter to him and gives us important impulses.

"What I also underlined in my declaration remains: that I have to bear personal responsibility and also have an ‘institutional responsibility,' especially in view of those affected [by clerical sexual abuse], whose perspective needs to be included even more effectively."

Catholic commentator Robert Mickens says Francis's refusal to accept Marx's letter of resignation will be a major blow to doctrinal hardliners, neo-traditionalists and the Catholic Church's "no change" crowd.

Marx is "one of the most energetic and forceful proponents of ecclesial reform through synodality, a process of wide-ranging consultation of all the Church's members that Francis is trying to make constitutive of Roman Catholicism," Mickens says.

German bishops' conference chairman Bishop Georg Bätzing and Thomas Sternberg, president of the influential lay Central Committee of German Catholics, are pleased Marx won't be resigning.

Sternberg says Francis's letter of resignation showed "that the alleged dissatisfaction with the ‘Synodal Way' in Germany does not correspond to the multi-layered reality."

He was referring to the controversial multi-year process bringing together bishops and lay people to discuss four main topics: the way power is exercised in the Church; sexual morality; the priesthood; and the role of women.

Marx himself has not been accused of abuse but says he must bear personal responsibility as well as bear an "institutional responsibility" for the church's handling of clergy sexual abuse.

On May 31, CathNews reported Pope Francis ordered an apostolic visitation of the Archdiocese of Cologne, in Germany, to examine the pastoral situation and the handling of sexual abuse cases.

The archdiocese said that the pope's apostolic visitors would evaluate "possible mistakes" made by its leader, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki.

Woelki has faced calls to resign since the archdiocese controversially declined to publish a report by the Munich law firm Westphal Spilker Wastl.

Source

• CNA
• La Croix
• NCR
• CathNews
• Image: DW