Bishop Georg Bätzing Germany’s Catholic bishops agreed this week to a uniform system for compensation payments to abuse survivors.
Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German bishops’ conference, announced the agreement September 24 at the end of the bishops’ plenary meeting in Fulda, central Germany.
Under the new system, survivors of abuse by Church workers will be entitled to a one-off payment of up to €50,000 ($58,000) – a sum based on current court rulings.
Previously German dioceses had determined payments individually.
At a press conference, Bishop Bätzing said that abuse victims should receive compensation in recognition of their suffering “without great bureaucratic effort”, reported CNA Deutsch.
A report, commissioned by the German bishops in 2014 but officially released in 2018, concluded that German clergy had abused thousands of children between 1946 and 2014.
The report recorded allegations against 1,670 German clerics, involving 3,677 alleged victims.