But in 1998, that trust cracked.
For the victims, healing was slow. Some left the Church entirely. Others stayed, demanding reform. Their voices, dismissed in 1998 as “anti-clerical hysteria,” now sound prophetic. priester auf abwegen: die beichte 1998
When police raided the rectory in June 1998, they found coded notebooks—alleged records of confessions, used not for spiritual guidance, but for leverage. The scandal forced a brutal public conversation. How could a priest—a man sworn to in persona Christi —abuse the one place where souls are most naked? But in 1998, that trust cracked