The former chairman of the lay diocesan council for the Diocese of Regensburg Germany has accused Cardinal Gerhard Müller of preventing a number of investigations into child sexual abuse in the diocese.
Müller is no ordinary cardinal. He is now the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a powerful dicastery in the Vatican power structure. From 2002 until 2012, Müller was the bishop of Regensburg.
According to the National Catholic Reporter:
In a long interview in the German weekly Die Zeit, former chairman Fritz Wallner described how Müller, who was bishop of Regensburg from 2002-2012, and his vicar-general, Fr. Michael Fuchs, ”systematically” prevented abuse cases from being investigated and calls for Fuchs, who is still vicar-general of Regensburg, to step down. In 2005, Müller disbanded the lay diocesan council, Wallner said, “as he wanted to hold the reins firmly in his own hands and that proved fatal for inner-church investigation of abuse.”
In the interview, Wallner alleges that Muller ignored the 2002 guidelines promulgated by the German Bishops Conference