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Zurich, March 31st, 2010. The intensive coverage of the ongoing revelations of child abuse and other misdemeanors of persons of trust in the Catholic Church leads to grave consequences. In previous years the members reacted to reports about scandals in religious communities by turning away from the church, this time a substantial loss of trust in the whole population can be observed. While in 2007 71% of Germans approved of Pope Benedict XVI., this dropped to only 31% in March 2010.

The comparison with Protestantism shows the marked difference in the attitude towards to wrongdoing: In February the President of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Bishop Margot Kaessman, who was caught driving drunk and running a red light, admitted her lapse immediately, resigned from all her official positions and thus averted the communicative risks of a prolonged media debate. The Catholic Church on the other hand remained reactive for much too long and thus provoked the narrowing of media coverage to the single aspect of the scandals. “Looking at the fact that at least the bishops were not at all surprised by the criminal behavior of some people in trusted positions in their ranks, such a style of communication leaves me perplexed,” Roland Schatz, founder and President of Media Tenor International, the Zurich-based media research institute, explains the damage to the reputation of the Church. “That the Catholic Church has left its followers and the public without a clear apology and without comprehensible and transparent guidelines for the future, shows how little the people responsible in the Church still appreciate the importance of communication.”

But there are signs of change in the face of crisis. In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Archbishop of Concepción in Chile, Ricardo Ezzai Andrello, admitted: “It is good that we are attacked strongly, because such things must not occur with a person, who is following the Gospel of Christ. When we are asked to be ‘Saints´ – while as well sinners, but searching for the honorable way, the way of duty – than it is good for us, when the media pulls our ears.” In the same way, many German bishops and priests have answered to the public in numerous talk shows.

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