VOTF Letter to the Bishop
of Trier, Germany

Dear Bishop Ackermann:

Voice of the Faithful greatly appreciates your action in opening files of clergy and lay personnel to independent professional investigators. This courageous act demonstrates that the bishops of Germany have understood the need for transparency and for holding accountable church child-molesters and those who have permitted these crimes to continue.

We are also encouraged that these researchers will consult with the researchers from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York who have conducted such a study, covering the period from 1950 through 2002 in the United States. The report of that study, issued in May of this year, asserted that there was a considerable increase in the incidence of such molestation roughly between 1965 and 1985, after which there was a marked decline in such incidents. We are curious to know if the German study reveals a similar phenomenon in the nine dioceses where the researchers will study data going back to 1945. Critics of the John Jay Study assert that, because victims of child molestation are unable to report their abuse for decades thereafter, the reports are not yet in for the period after 1985. 

We expect that you are aware that the John Jay researchers were not permitted access to the relevant personnel files, but were dependent upon the reporting of such data by diocesan officials. We thus believe that the results of the German study may have greater credibility because of its greater access to the relevant data. By thus exposing the full depth of the scandal, you will be doing a great service not only for the German Church, but also for the universal Church. Only then will the Church be able to renew itself and regain its moral authority.

Voice of the Faithful is 40,000 Catholics worldwide, clerics and lay people, committed to renewing our Church from within. Our mission is to provide a prayerful voice, attentive to the Spirit, through which the Faithful can actively participate in the governance and guidance of the Catholic Church.

We greatly appreciate the attitude toward clergy sexual abuse your plan reflects.

Please feel free to share this letter with your brother bishops. If we can support you at any time, please call on us.

Very truly yours,

Dan Bartley, President
Voice of the Faithful