Germany: University of Mannheim study finds 150 suspected Speyer diocese perpetrators, children's homes as 'hotspots'

Proceedings

1. 2025-05-08 · official-finding

   Independent academic study commissioned for the Diocese of Speyer, Germany. A University of Mannheim team led by historian Sylvia Schraut published a roughly 473-page study identifying 150 suspected perpetrators — 109 priests and 41 church employees, including some nuns — since 1946. The study found church structures substantially facilitated abuse through lack of oversight and authoritarian leadership, identified diocesan children's homes as abuse 'hotspots,' and found twelve perpetrators had been convicted or fined by the time of publication, with half of all documented cases dating to the 1950s–60s.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• clerical office and residential-institution authority within diocesan children's homes and parishes