After the Catholics, the German Protestants are overtaken by a sexual assault scandal. The leader of their church resigned on Monday, November 20 after being accused of covering up an affair.
According to the German newspaper Siegener Zeitung, the highest representative of this institution, Annette Kurschus, is suspected of having been informed in the 1990s of accusations of attacks brought against a former colleague, but she would have taken nothing against him . The suspect in question is now the subject of a police investigation. The precise nature of the attacks has not been disclosed at this stage.
Ms. Kurschus, aged 60, denied knowledge of the attacks but decided to resign “to prevent [the image of] her Church from being tarnished.” “The suspicion falls on a man with whose family I have had a long-standing friendship,” she said at a press conference in Bielefeld.
She simply specified that she “had knowledge of the homosexuality” of her colleague married to a woman and “of his infidelities”. Annette Kurschus argued that she had sought to protect the suspect’s family, but found herself under fire “for a lack of transparency.”
“It is all the more bitter since I have never – and I insist on this point – sought to evade my responsibilities, to hide important facts, to conceal facts or even to cover up an accused,” she declared. “I wish, twenty-five years ago, I had been as attentive, trained and sensitive to the behavioral problems that would alert me today,” she said.
At the material time, Ms Kurschus was a pastor in Siegen. According to the local newspaper Siegener Zeitung, a victim and three other people reported sexual assault by his colleague who worked at the same place.
1,670 Catholic clergy accused
Ms. Kurschus is the second woman to serve as leader of the German Protestant Church. The president of the synod of the German Protestant Church, Anna-Nicole Heinrich, welcomed his resignation “with respect”. “This shows the importance given within the Protestant Church to actions against sexual violence,” she said.
With 20 million faithful, the Protestant Church represents the second largest denomination in Germany behind that of the Catholics (around 22 million). Both have been facing an erosion in the number of faithful for years. While the German Catholic Church has been in turmoil for years due to allegations of sexual assault, its Protestant counterpart has until now been largely spared.
A study commissioned by the German Bishops’ Conference in 2018 concluded that 1,670 Catholic clergy in the country committed some form of sexual assault on 3,677 minors between 1946 and 2014.
However, the actual number of victims would be much higher. The ceiling for compensation paid by the Catholic Church in Germany was raised in 2020 to reach 50,000 euros, compared to around 5,000 euros previously, but the associations believe that this sum is still insufficient.
In 2022 alone, around €28 million in payments were approved. The president of the assembly of German bishops, Georg Bätzing, regretted the resignation of Annette Kurschus. Without wanting or being able to judge the reasons for this departure, he felt that “ecumenism in Germany was losing an essential engine”.