Matthias Katsch

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Matthias Katsch, 2018

Matthias Katsch (* 1963 in Berlin ) is a German activist for the victims of child sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church . He is a member of the Council of Affected Persons at the Independent Commissioner for Issues of Child Sexual Abuse and, as the affected person's representative, a permanent guest of the Independent Commission for Investigating Child Sexual Abuse . As a teenager at a Jesuit - College even sexually abusedSince the beginning of the 2010s, he has made a significant contribution to the fact that such cases of abuse became public and at least partially started a process that continues to this day.

Life

From 1973 to 1981 Matthias Katsch attended the Canisius-Kolleg Berlin (CK), a state-recognized, private Catholic high school in Berlin-Tiergarten under the sponsorship of the Jesuit Order. He was there in 1977, at the age of 13, as part of the extracurricular youth work of the then Community of Christian Life (GCL) (today: ISG ) for the first time and repeatedly by the spiritual leader, the Jesuit Peter R., - as other boys and later also some girls - sexually harassed. In the same year he was repeatedly sexually mistreated in a sadistic manner by another Jesuit, the sports teacher Wolfgang S., like numerous classmates at that time.

According to Katsch himself, the sexual abuse caused shame and feelings of guilt, among other things, and at the age of 15 “the first depressive phases began that would shape his whole subsequent life”. He has "difficulties finding his way in work life" and relationships have often failed. Only after the numerous other cases of abuse in Jesuit schools and getting to know other victims were discovered and publicized, he was able to establish a connection between the massive attacks at the Canisius College at the time and his "lost happiness" in 2010/2011.

Katsch studied philosophy and politics and obtained a Master of Arts (MA) and Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) degrees . He is now working as a management trainer and consultant in corporate change processes.

Matthias Katsch lives and works in Offenburg .

2010 abuse scandal

In January 2010 Katsch and two former classmates turned to the then head of the Canisius College (CK), Father Klaus Mertes  SJ, and reported on his experiences. Mertes then sent a letter to around 600 former students of the CK from the 1970s and 1980s to encourage other suspected victims to come forward. This started the so-called "abuse scandal" by the media. After this letter was published by the Berliner Morgenpost on January 28, 2010 , hundreds of other victims contacted church and other institutions in the weeks and months that followed.

Ultimately, the "abuse scandal" becoming known and the growing public awareness of the high level of sexual abuse in Germany can be traced back to the initiative of Matthias Katsch and his classmates.

Matthias Katsch (left) as a representative of those affected in the TV talk show Maischberger on September 26, 2018

Katsch founded the Eckiger Tisch initiative together with other victims of the Jesuit schools in Germany . This alliance demands clarification, help and satisfaction, which also means adequate financial compensation.

In 2011 the Catholic Church decided to grant victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy a so-called “Recognition service for the suffering suffered”. The benefit must be applied for and can amount to up to 5,000 euros, in particularly difficult individual cases even more. According to an evaluation as part of the MHG study, the mean value is approx. 3,000 euros. The Jesuits in turn granted their victims a lump sum of 5,000 euros. Katsch also took advantage of this. At the same time he criticized the lack of actual compensation and the lack of real justice.

At the beginning of 2018, at a joint initiative of Katsch, those affected and activists from 15 countries met in Geneva and founded the international association ECA - Ending Clergy Abuse , "to confront the world church globally, to support one another [and] exchange information". In addition to Katsch, the founding members include other prominent victims of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church such as Peter Saunders ( United Kingdom ), Peter Isely ( USA ) and José Andrés Murillo (Chile). Katsch took over the office of one of the five directors of ECA.

Since May 2019, Katsch has been a member of the Independent Commission for dealing with child sexual abuse , which was convened by the Independent Commissioner of the German Federal Parliament for Issues of Child Sexual Abuse , to which he had previously been a permanent guest since its inauguration in 2016.

At the invitation of the German Bishops' Conference , Katsch and 30 experts took part in an independent working group that was supposed to develop a proposal for a compensation model for victims of sexual abuse in the Church. In September 2019 he presented the results to the bishops at their autumn plenary meeting in Fulda.

In 2019 Matthias Katsch received the Culture Prize of the International Paulus Society . Katsch's commitment to coming to terms with sexual crimes against children and young people in the Catholic Church is recognized.

Publications

media

Movies

literature

  • Barbara Tambour: "Life is only right now" . In: Publik-Forum . November 9, 2012, issue 21/2012 ( limited preview on publik-forum.de).
  • Eva Müller : Judge of God. The secret processes of the church . 1st edition. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2016, ISBN 978-3-462-04948-0 , p. 151–180 (Chapter: 11. Sin against the sixth commandment. How the Catholic Church punishes sexual abuse ).

Web links

Commons : Matthias Katsch  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Joachim Fahrun: A year ago a letter shook the church. In: morgenpost.de . Berliner Morgenpost , January 19, 2011, accessed on October 12, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b Anette Deutskens: Abuse: "Church protected the perpetrators". In: NDR.de . Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) , November 6, 2017, accessed on October 12, 2018 (interview with Matthias Katsch).
  3. ↑ a b c Atika Shubert: German abuse survivors say Church's $ 5,900 'recognition fee' is not justice. In: edition.cnn.com. CNN , September 25, 2018, accessed October 12, 2018 (English, with video stream ).
  4. ^ Klaus Hofmeister: Clerical Silent Cartel. The Catholic Taste of Abuse. Broadcast in SWR2 , Faith series , broadcast on August 7, 2012, 12:05 pm (with Matthias Katsch, Father Klaus Mertes and the Catholic theologian and psychologist Wunibald Müller ).
  5. ^ The Council of Affected Persons >>  Matthias Katsch. In: commissioner-missrauch.de. Independent Commissioner for Child Sexual Abuse Issues , accessed October 16, 2018 (short biography).
  6. ↑ http://www.eckiger-tisch.de
  7. ↑ a b Frank Bachner: Dealing with the abuse: "The bishops drive this church on the wall". In: tagesspiegel.de . October 15, 2018, accessed October 16, 2018 .
  8. ↑ a b Wolfgang Beck : Sexual abuse. A study in the perception of victims. In: feinschwarz.net. September 26, 2018, accessed October 16, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Founding Members caglobal.org
  10. ↑ Procedure for performance in recognition of inflicted suffering is being further developed. In: dbk.de . September 24, 2019, accessed January 8, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Culture Prize of the Paulus Society for engagement against abuse. In: evangelisch.de . July 1, 2019, accessed January 8, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Katsch, Matthias
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German activist for victims of sexual violence
DATE OF BIRTH 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin