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| - Faced with accusations of trying to cover up sexual violence in Germany's most powerful Roman Catholic diocese, the archbishop of Cologne will publish Thursday a long-awaited report on abuse by clergy. An attorney mandated by the Church, Bjoern Gercke, will unveil his independent investigation at 0900 GMT which promises a thorough reckoning with molestation of minors by priests, including the names of alleged abusers. Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelki, a conservative who has long resisted Church reform efforts, has not ruled out stepping down if the report finds him guilty of wrongdoing. Woelki had faced a months-long firestorm of protest for refusing to allow the publication of an earlier study on abuse committed by clergy in his diocese, the country's largest, between 1975 and 2018. Woelki justified his decision by citing a right to privacy of the alleged perpetrators accused in the report, carried out by a Munich law firm, and what he called a lack of independence on the part of some researchers. His approach was branded "a disaster" as recently as late February by Georg Baetzing, president of the German bishops' conference, in a blistering public statement. Media reports ahead of the new report's release said it identifies around 200 abusers of minors -- priests or laypeople working for the Church -- and some 300 victims, twice as many as originally estimated. Gercke told regional daily Rheinische Post he found "severe failings" by Church leadership in several cases in their dealings with known abusers. Woelki said in early March he would immediately "temporarily suspend, if necessary, people cited in the report" before taking more concrete measures to address its findings next week. And he expressed willingness to throw his weight behind an honest accounting of crimes committed within the Church. "Only the truth can set us free from the shadows of the past," he said. The abuse scandal returns to the headlines just as the Catholic Church has made small steps toward redressing decades of abuse and coverups. "The tragedy of Cologne regarding the report and the archbishop overshadowed this aspect" of progress made, the government commissioner on child sexual abuse, Johannes-Wilhelm Roerig, said recently. A study commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference and released in 2018 showed that 1,670 clergymen had committed some type of sexual attack against 3,677 minors, mostly boys, between 1946 and 2014. However its authors said the actual number of victims was almost certainly much higher. The revelations, which mirror paedophile scandals in countries including Australia, Chile, France, Ireland and the United States, prompted Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a prominent reformer, to apologise on behalf of the German Catholic Church. The Church currently pays victims an average of 5,000 euros ($5,953) "in recognition of their suffering", as well as covering their therapy fees. Victims have called the sum woefully insufficient. Meanwhile each diocese in Germany has ordered a separate local investigation into abuse among its ranks. The scandal in Cologne has sapped energy from efforts to spearhead broader reforms at a time when the Church is losing members, who in Germany pay a tax that goes toward church activities including charity work. Germany's Catholic Church, the country's largest, counted 22.6 million members in 2019, two million fewer than in 2010 when the first major wave of paedophile abuse cases came to light. Among the reforms on the table, in the face of opposition from Woelki and the pope, are a reevaluation of celibacy in the clergy, married priests and a greater role for laypeople and women in the Church. In a setback for members calling for greater openness, the Vatican on Monday said the Church does not have the power to bless same-sex unions, declaring it was impossible for God to "bless sin". That reaffirmation of a harder line is no accident, said Thomas Sternberg, president of the influential Central Committee of German Catholics, calling it a way for Rome to "disrupt" the German reform drive. ilp-dlc/hmn/wai
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