New Study Reveals 3,677 German Catholic Church Sex Abuse Cases Over Decades - Sputnik International

A series of sex scandals has hit the church recently, with cases of the sexual abuse of thousands of minors and clerical cover-up emerging in the US, Australia, and Chile. The Pontiff himself has been accused of knowing about a disgraced US cardinal's sexual misconduct and doing nothing with it.

The Catholic Church is now facing a series of sex scandals, this time in Germany. Der Spiegel magazine said on Wednesday that thousands of children had been sexually abused by the German Catholic clergy over a 70-year period.

The study, conducted by the universities of Giessen, Heidelberg and Mannheim, detailed 3,677 cases of child sexual abuse between 1946 and 2014, perpetrated by 1,670 clerics and priests. The victims were predominantly boys, and more than half of them were aged 13 or younger. In many cases, pieces of records were destroyed or manipulated, the study added.

Der Spiegel quoted the study as saying that the Church had often moved clerics accused of sexual abuse to new communities, without notifying them about the perpetrations. Moreover, the culprits tended to escape punishment: only one third of those accused faced legal proceedings through the church, while 4 percent of identified perpetrators were still working. The study insisted that it is not yet time to say that the sexual abuse of minors is entirely in the past, as it continued until the end of the investigation period.

New Study Reveals 3,677 German Catholic Church Sex Abuse Cases Over Decades - Sputnik International

UPDATED:: Victims of a Christian sect led by an ex-Nazi seek justice

UPDATE::  German investigators in Chile over Nazi pedophile sect, as leader remains free

A German delegation was in Chile on Tuesday to learn more about the ongoing investigation into Colonia Dignidad, a notorious Nazi pedophile sect founded by German immigrants in the 1960s.

Judge Mario Carroza held nearly two hours of talks with German prosecutors and representatives of the justice ministry on Monday, updating them on the Chilean probe into the sect’s leaders, judicial officials said.

The visit comes as German courts are mulling an appeal filed by Dr Hartmut Hopp, a central figure in the scandal who fled Chile in 2011 after being convicted of complicity in 16 cases of child abuse.

When ex-Nazi paedophile Paul Schäfer, above, fled from Germany in 1959 after being charged with child abuse, the lay preacher established  ‘one of the worst sects in the history of humanity – a stupid, fanatical Christianity.’

That’s the description of Colonia Dignidad provided by Winfried Hempel, who escaped the abusive sect 18 years ago.

According to this report, Hempel, now a lawyer, is heading a lawsuit against the German and Chilean states for the suffering he and other youngsters endured in the Colonia Dignidad commune.

Hempel, 38, alleges that both countries allowed the abuse to happen at the ironically named “Dignity Camp”, originally set up to deliver Christian charity to the local communities

Before his death at the age of 88 in a Chilean prison in 2010, Schäfer collaborated with the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, whose secret police used the colony as a place to torture opponents.

Hempel is bringing a joint lawsuit on behalf of 120 former residents of the colony who blame the Chilean state for allowing it to operate for years, during which time they say numerous victims were abused and enslaved.

The Freethinker - The voice of atheism since 1881 » Victims of a Christian sect led by an ex-Nazi seek justice

Exorcism Death: 5 Relatives Charged With Murder in Germany - NBC News

Five family members have been charged with murder after a 41-year-old woman died during an exorcism, German officials announced Thursday.

The victim had started to "flail around and become physically aggressive" before her relatives decided to attempt the ritual at a Frankfurt hotel in December, according to prosecutors.

Some of the family members held the woman's arms and pushed her to the floor, while others pressed "massively on her chest, stomach and shoulders with their knees," authorities allege.


Exorcism Death: 5 Relatives Charged With Murder in Germany - NBC News

Syrian gang rape victim who fled to Germany is stabbed to death 'in honour killing' | Daily Mail Online

A woman whose family branded her 'unclean' after she was gang-raped in her Syrian homeland has been found murdered in Germany – allegedly on the orders of her own mother.

Police believe the victim, named only as Rokstan M, 20, was stabbed to death by her father and brothers in the twisted logic that she had brought disgrace on her family through the sex attack.

Shortly before she was found dead in an allotment garden in the eastern German city of Dessau, she apparently had a premonition of her fate.

Writing on her WhatsApp profile, she said: 'I am awaiting death. But I am too young to die.'

Syrian gang rape victim who fled to Germany is stabbed to death 'in honour killing' | Daily Mail Online

Homeopathy conference ends in chaos after delegates take hallucinogenic drug - Health News - Health & Families - The Independent

So I have kind of watching and waiting to see if more information comes forth as to what might have occurred   Was this accidental,

An alternative medicine conference has ended in chaos in Germany after dozens of delegates took a LSD-like drug and started suffering from hallucinations.

Broadcaster NDR described the 29 men and women “staggering around, rolling in a meadow, talking gibberish and suffering severe cramps”.

The group of "Heilpraktikers" was discovered at the hotel where they held their conference in the town of Handeloh, south of Hamburg, on Friday.
,,,
More than 150 medical staff, ambulances and police descended on the scene and took the raving delegates to hospital.

The patients, aged between 24 and 56, were found suffering from delusions, breathing problems, racing hearts and cramps, with some in a serious condition, Deutsche Welle reported.

Tests on their blood and urine revealed they had all taken hallucinogenic drug 2C-E, which is known as Aquarust in Germany and has been illegal there since the end of last year.

just plain stupidity, 

Some are wondering if they were doing a “proving” – a group test of a “remedy”. Provings with LSD have been done before. They are unscientific, subjective and worthless. But perhaps in this case, the dose was actually viable (unlike with the rest of homeopathy) and they were affected. Or, something else is going on. We’ll have to see. Updates are appreciated.

      

or shock of all shocks part of a vast conspiracy to kill off alt-med practitioners.  Something Hill alluded to and Kim LaCapria does a good job explaining why that idea is bunk:

On 7 September 2015, the unreliable alternative health web site Health Nut News published a blog post titled “US NEWS: 29 Holistic Doctors/ND’s Poisoned, Some suffering “life threatening conditions” at Conference (Criminal investigation Underway).” That blog post was authored by a person who previously claimed multiple unrelated doctors’ deaths in mid-2015 were part of a shadowy, as-of-yet unexplained conspiracy; her description of the incident in Germany framed those who fell ill as “doctors” and their ingestion of the drug as a definitive, deliberate poisoning (and the ensuing investigation as into what was ostensibly a criminal attempt to harm them),,,

So while it’s true 29 attendees at a holistic conference were sickened by the ingestion of a meth-based drug known as Aquarust, those attendees were likely not all “holistic doctors.” Moreover, the circumstances under which they ingested the substance remained unconfirmed; authorities believed it most likely victims were misled as to the nature of a substance before they ingested it. No credible reports offered anything in the way of evidence (or even suggestion) that the conference attendees were deliberately poisoned in an attempt to do them harm.

Homeopathy conference ends in chaos after delegates take hallucinogenic drug - Health News - Health & Families - The Independent

89-Year-Old Toolmaker Arrested In Philadelphia On Nazi Death Camp Charges

An 89-year-old Philadelphia man was ordered held without bail Wednesday on a German arrest warrant charging him with aiding and abetting the killing of 216,000 Jewish men, women and children while he was a guard at the Auschwitz death camp.

The man, retired toolmaker Johann "Hans" Breyer, was arrested by U.S. authorities Tuesday night. Breyer spent the night in custody and appeared frail during a detention hearing in federal court, wearing an olive green prison jumpsuit and carrying a cane.

Legal filings unsealed Wednesday in the U.S. indicate the district court in Weiden, Germany, issued a warrant for Breyer's arrest the day before, charging him with 158 counts of complicity in the commission of murder.

Each count represents a trainload of Nazi prisoners from Hungary, Germany and Czechoslovakia who were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau between May 1944 and October 1944, the documents said.

[,,,]
A court ruling in 2003 allowed him to stay in the United States, mainly on the grounds that he had joined the SS as a minor and could therefore not be held legally responsible for participation in it. His American citizenship stems from the fact his mother was born in the U.S.; she later moved to Europe, where Breyer was born.

89-Year-Old Toolmaker Arrested In Philadelphia On Nazi Death Camp Charges

Man Behind Massive Nazi-Looted Art Trove Strikes Deal With German Authorities

A reclusive collector who hoarded hundreds of valuable artworks at his Munich home has agreed to cooperate with German authorities' efforts to determine which pieces were seized by the Nazis.

As part of the deal announced Monday, Cornelius Gurlitt will get back those works that are indisputably his.

Authorities found some 1,400 items at Gurlitt's home while investigating a tax case in 2012, though it only became public last November. Officials say at least 458 works may have been seized from their owners by the Nazis, and Gurlitt's representatives are in talks with several claimants seeking restitution. The works include Henri Matisse's "Femme assise," for which two claims have been made.

Officials have said for months they would like to reach an agreement with Gurlitt, who in February filed an appeal against the artworks' seizure.

Man Behind Massive Nazi-Looted Art Trove Strikes Deal With German Authorities

Former Auschwitz medic arrested in Germany | World news | theguardian.com

Growing up I remember many news stories about the "capture" and trials. I remember the numbers on my "aunt's" wrist. As a senior in college, John Demjanjuk's prosecution was just beginning, a case I had followed up until his death in 2012. I remember the numbers stamped on the wrist of a waitress at one of my favorite eating haunts. Slowly the trials began to fade. We all got older victims, perpetrators, witnesses and those with an interest in seeing justice done. So many have gotten away, but yet,,,

German police have arrested a former Nazi medic who served at the Auschwitz death camp on multiple charges of aiding and abetting murder.

[,,,]
The arrest followed a recommendation from the German office investigating Nazi war crimes to bring charges. It was the latest in a series of arrests since Germany launched a renewed drive to bring to justice the last surviving perpetrators of the Holocaust.

For more than 60 years German courts prosecuted Nazi war criminals only if evidence showed they had personally committed atrocities. But in 2011 a Munich court sentenced John Demjanjuk to five years in prison for complicity in the extermination of Jews at the Sobibor camp, establishing that all former camp guards could be tried.

"There cannot be a statute of limitation for crimes against humanity, and mass murderers must continue to live in fear of the long arm of the law," Lauder said.

Former Auschwitz medic arrested in Germany | World news | theguardian.com

See also: 
Nearly 70 Years Later, a New Round of Auschwitz Prosecutions

A different angle on the story from above. The Guardian article focused on one arrest, this piece talks of a list of 50 former guards who worked at the Auschwitz.

They worked as guards at the Holocaust’s most notorious death camp, and nearly seven decades later they may finally be brought to account before a court of law.

Germany’s Central Office for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes has prepared a list of 50 former guards who worked at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland and are still alive, said Kurt Schrimm, the head of the office.

Staff members searched old court records and Holocaust-related documents looking for names, and even traveled to Poland last year to try to augment their lists. One checked the names of the Auschwitz guards against databases to determine which were still alive.

The next step is ruling out those who were already tried, either by the occupation authorities or the German legal system. “We have to determine now whether or not these 50 people that we found on this list can be legally prosecuted,” Mr. Schrimm said Wednesday in a telephone interview.

The list includes names that have been known to his office since the Auschwitz trials in the ’60s as well as recent additions made last year, Mr. Schrimm said.

88-year-old charged in Nazi-era massacre - Yahoo News

An act of war or a war crime? Is there a difference? Does the fact that Werner C. was only 19 have any bearing on his guilt or innocence. Does the fact that he was SS have any bearing?

Stuff I ponder anytime I see stories such as these. But I am biased,,,

German authorities said Wednesday they have charged an 88-year-old former member of an SS armored division with 25 counts of murder over allegations that he took part in the largest civilian massacre in Nazi-occupied France.

Cologne state court spokesman Achim Hengstenberg said suspect Werner C., whose last name wasn't given in accordance with German privacy laws, was also charged with hundreds of counts of accessory to murder in connection with the 1944 slaughter in Oradour-sur-Glane in southwestern France.

Dortmund prosecutors allege that the suspect shot 25 men as part of a firing squad, and then helped as troops blockaded and then set fire to a church, in which dozens of women and children were burned alive.

In total 642 men, women and children were killed



88-year-old charged in Nazi-era massacre - Yahoo News

German 'bling bishop' settles legal case - Yahoo News

Berlin (AFP) - Germany's embattled "bling bishop" Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst has settled a court case over lying under oath with a 20,000-euro ($27,000) payment, the court said Monday.

The Roman Catholic bishop has also been under fire for extravagant spending on his official residence and was last month indefinitely relieved of his clerical duties by Pope Francis.

The legal headache he faced centred on a tussle with Hamburg-based news weekly Der Spiegel, which had reported that he flew first class to visit slum dwellers in India.

Tebartz-van Elst, 53, had later told a Spiegel journalist that "we flew business class" but then in sworn testimony denied having said those words.

German 'bling bishop' settles legal case - Yahoo News