An article from the BBC reports that more than 3,600 children in Germany were assaulted by Roman Catholic priests between 1946 and 2014, a leaked report has revealed. The study was commissioned by the Church itself, and was due to be published on 25 September. According to the report, some 1,670 clergymen in Germany committed some form of sex attack on 3,677 minors, German outlet Spiegel Online reported. A Church spokesman said it was "dismayed and ashamed" by the findings. The report is the latest in a long series of revelations that have uncovered decades of sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests around the world. Most of the victims were boys, and more than half were aged 13 or younger. The study was compiled by three German universities, using 38,000 documents from 27 German dioceses.
"We know the extent of the sexual abuse that has been demonstrated by the study. We are dismayed and ashamed by it," said Bishop Stephan Ackermann, a spokesman for the German Bishops' Conference which commissioned the report.
He said the aim of the study was to shed light on "this dark side of our Church, for the sake of those affected, but also for us ourselves to see the errors and to do everything to prevent them from being repeated".
"I stress that the study is a measure that we owe not only to the Church but first and foremost, to those affected," the bishop added.
He said the Church had planned to provide counselling helplines for people affected by its contents. In August, the Pope condemned the "atrocities" of child sex abuse in a letter to the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.(Edited from a Report by BBC)
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