Catholic nuns running a children’s home in Germany pimped out boys to priests, politicians and businessmen who would rape the children at sex parties, according to a victim who has won a compensation battle.
Darmstaft Social Welfare Court awarded the man, now 63, compensation after he detailed how nuns dragged him to be abused by priests and powerful men at parties, starting at age five. They paid the women for doing so.
The victim, who remains anonymous, said he was raped around 1,000 times during his time at the home in the 1960s and 70s, alongside other boys.
The court ruled on the case in May but the latest abuse scandal for the Catholic church only came to light this month after a senior clergyman spoke publicly.
The Bishop of Speyer, Karl-Heinz Wiesemann publicly named former official of the diocese Rudolf Motzenbäcker, who died in 1998, as being allegedly involved in the abuse. The bishop said three further victims have since come forward.
The abuse victim was just five when he joined the home run by the Order of the Sisters of the Divine Saviour in the German city of Speyer in March 1963.
The victim said he was ‘literally dragged’ by the nuns to Motzenbäcker’s apartment to be sexually abused, reports Der Spiegel. They would beat him when he resisted.
The man, who was an alter boy at the Speyer Cathedral, said he was assigned the priest as a confessor.
The victim said visitors to the children’s home would abuse him at ‘sex parties’. It was here that he said the nuns would pass youngsters aged between seven and 14 to clergymen, local politicians and businessmen.
‘The nuns were pimps,’ he said. If they disobeyed they would be beaten with sticks or have their heads smashed against the wall.
‘There was a room where the nuns served drinks and food to the men and in the other corner the children were raped,’ his court testimony reads, according to KNA. ‘The nuns earned money. The men present donated generously.’
He said he was raped by three priests at the same time on one occasion.
‘Sometimes I would run back to the home in blood-smeared clothes, the blood ran down my legs,’ he said. ‘Before I left in September 1972, I had been sexually abused about a thousand times.’
He testified in court that the nuns were key in aiding the abuse of the children at the home, even claiming the sisters themselves would sexually abuse underage boys. The children’s home was shut in 2000.
The Catholic Church paid the man 15,000 euros in compensation and 10,000 euros for therapy costs alongside a victim’s pension.
‘But what’s the use of the money?,’ the victim, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, asked. ‘My marriage is broken. My bones, liver and kidneys are too.’
‘For victims of abuse, taking legal action is associated with considerable psychological stress,’ said Judge Andrea Herrmann from the Darmstadt Social Court.
Since 2010, the Catholic Church has faced a number of cases of abuse. An internal investigation into abuse in 2018 revealed abuse involving 1,670 clerics and 3,677 victims between 1946 and 2014.
Source: Dailymail.com.uk
