The diocese of Eichstätt, Germany could have lost millions with dubious financial transactions. In an internal interim report practicing attorneys now harsh criticism at high-level clergy in their own diocese.
“financial scandal in the diocese of Eichstätt – causes, responsibilities, consequences and experiences”: the internal is overwritten interim report of the diocese to the Eichstätter financial scandal, whose main findings have been presented, the lawyers of the diocese of today. It comes to financial and the welfare loss of rich adventure, especially one in which several of the Accused, the diocese will have invested up to $ 60 million in windy real estate deals in the United States, the threat of high losses to the detriment of the Church’s assets and the Church of the taxpayers
was turned on at the request of the Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke in July 2017, the office of the public Prosecutor and then before a year was made public. A total of 31 loans to American real estate companies should have been assigned, the diocese, without collateral, repayment is now questionable. According to the report, accused former financial Director himself is profiting at the shops. The Prosecutor’s office determined. The Accused has denied the allegations.
“System failure”
The analysis of the of the diocese commissioned Munich-based firm now sees the germ of the scandal in “systemic failure” within the diocese itself and finding: “In the diocese of Eichstätt, a conservation prevailed in the area of asset management, a klerikales power system, the acceptance of Church legal violations served and in particular the power of a small circle of high-ranking clerics”. There is a “comprehensive System of non-transparency”. This System had ended by the Bishop at the end of 2015, the first by the nationwide, for all dioceses adopted the so-called transparency offensive.
special responsibility to carry between 2004 and 2015, according to the report, significant operating authorities and members of the powerful Cathedral Chapter. These were “de facto main person responsible” for a “wetlands for offenders in the capital area”.
investigations by The public Prosecutor, however, are not yet completed. Two worldly Accused who sat in the meantime in custody, are initially free.