Archbishop Heiner Koch of Berlin. Photo: CNS The archdiocese of Berlin announced that it was temporarily suspending the work of its expert commission established to follow up on a legal report about sexual abuse in the archdiocese since 1946.
The archdiocese said June 22 that the commission is recommending that findings from the legal firm Redeker Sellner Dahs be reworked or that another legal firm be commissioned to investigate the abuse.
In a statement later that day, lawyers Sabine Wildfeuer and Peter-Andreas Brand of Redeker Sellner Dahs said they learned about the suspension of the archdiocesan Sexual Abuse Expert Commission through the media.
“No one has spoken to us about this, neither from the archdiocesan staff nor from the expert commission,” the letter said.
“Our mandate for a legal opinion has been fulfilled completely and properly. The report states in detail by whom and in what way cases of sexual abuse were covered up in the area of the archdiocese and whether and to what extent the applicable Church and ecclesiastical criminal law regulations were observed.”
In January, when the lawyers’ report was first presented, about two-thirds of it was not made available to the media or the public, on the orders of Archbishop Heiner Koch of Berlin.