Germany: tracking down the truth

In Germany the Catholic Church has announced it will finance two major studies that aim to shed light on past cases of sex abuse of children by clerics. Nine German dioceses will open records dating back to 1945 to independent investigators while the remaining ones will do so for the period 2000 to 2010. The Church says it will use the studies to track down the truth on past abuse cases and also to improve prevention of future abuse. Matthias Kopp is the spokesperson for the German Catholic Bishops Conference and he spoke to Susy Hodges about this move:

Kopp says: "We want to have ... "transparency on what happened in the past years" ... what we need now is the truth." Kopp also said they sought advice from the U.S. Church on how they dealt with the same issue of clerical sex abuse of children: "some of the ideas from the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference influenced our discussions."

Listen to the full interview with Kopp by Susy Hodges: