Peter Beer Clergy Abuse
A former top official in one of the world’s wealthiest Catholic dioceses says he quit his key post two years ago because of internal opposition to his efforts to clean up clergy sex abuse.
Mgr. Peter Beer, who served from 2010-2020 as vicar general of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, said the horrific details that emerged from a recently published report on sex abuse in the archdiocese are “absolutely plausible”.
“It objectively documents what everyone feared and what I myself experienced – namely that the Church cannot reappraise itself. That is my own, bitter experience,” the 56-year-old priest said in a full-page interview published January 27 in the German weekly Die Zeit.
“That is why I gave up my job as vicar-general of Munich two years ago. The opposition I faced was too great even for a vicar general,” he revealed.
The so-called Munich Report, which was published January 20, exonerated Beer and proved he was strictly against abuse, confirming that his efforts were met with bitter opposition .
Beer told Die Zeit it came from all those who felt they were superior to the rest of society, who were used to judging others without ever being judged themselves, and who were frightened that their life’s work would be destroyed.
He said opposition also from those who suffered from the delusion that they were surrounded by enemies of the Church and from those who were on the one hand mutually blackmailable but at the same thought they were unassailable.