Cologne, Germany, May 3, 2022 / 07:15 am
The Vatican has ruled that the German Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki did not breach canon law when awarding contracts connected to a landmark report on clerical abuse.
The Archdiocese of Cologne announced the Vatican’s decision on May 3, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.
During a seven-month “period of spiritual leave” taken by the cardinal, the apostolic administrator of the archdiocese commissioned two independent canon lawyers to study the contracts awarded by Woelki and vicar general Msgr. Markus Hofmann.
The contracts related to the 800-page Gercke Report, released in March 2021. The study, known as the “Independent Investigation into the Handling of Sexualized Violence in the Archdiocese of Cologne,” covered the period from 1975 to 2018.