Diocese of Speyer: abuse by ex-vicar general

SPEYER Goes public with the investigation of abuse by name: Karl-Heinz Wiesemann. Anne-Susann von Ehr Thursday, December 10, 2020 - 10:21 a.m. The former vicar general and legal advisor Rudolf Motzenbäcker was guilty of sexual abuse of boys: Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann is convinced of this. In an interview with the church newspaper “Pilger”, Wiesemann said on Thursday that three victims had independently raised allegations because they had been abused by Motzenbäcker between 1963 and 1975. The priest, who died in 1998, was vicar general from 1959 to 1968 and official from 1969 to 1995, i.e. the highest lawyer in the diocese. A legal clarification is no longer possible because according to German criminal law no investigations are carried out against the dead. A victim was able to sue for benefits under the Victims Compensation Act at the Darmstadt Social Court. According to the diocese's press office, it is serious abuse, i.e. over a longer period of time and in a large number of acts. The assaults happened when the man was living as a child and adolescent in a children's home in Speyer run by the Niederbronn sisters. The home in Engelsgasse was closed in 2000.