No cover-up of abuse by Church, says Müller

The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has stressed it was not the Church but individual priests who were responsible for the abuse scandal.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller claimed many priests had been unjustly accused of sexual abuse and that it was wrong to accuse the Church of “cover-up”.

The remarks in a newspaper interview during a visit to his native Germany led to a call for his resignation by Fr Klaus Mertes SJ, the whistle-blowing priest whose revelations about clerical abuse led to the “abuse tsunami’ in 2010 in German-speaking countries.

Cardinal Müller told Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger: “Not the Church, but individual perpetrators, who were not motivated by their priestly office but because they were disturbed or immature, were guilty of these offences. The vast majority of priests have been bitterly wronged by the generalisations.”

The words “cover-up” were being used far too lightly, he said. Covering up an offence meant consciously preventing the exercise of criminal jurisdiction but everyone was well aware nowadays that in past decades not nearly as much was known about the long-term consequences for the victims of sexual abuse as is known today.

“The victims’ suffering is truly terrible but it is the perpetrators who must take the responsibility and not those who are innocent just because they are related to them or work with them,” Müller said. “There are people who have been unjustly accused and who in their own words have been through hell”.

Müller also sharply denied that he is opposed to Pope Francis. Unlike himself, Pope Francis is “not a professional theologian” but first and foremost a “carer of souls”. “The particular thing about Francis is the charismatic gift he has of being able to unlock blockades and hardened positions. He has an ingenious gift for that. My role is to act as a corrective for the Pope’s exuberance,” Müller said.