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April 28, 2024 – 04:10
(Keystone-ATS) The Reformed Church wants to conduct a study on sexual abuse. The Evangelical Reformed Church of Switzerland (EERS) submitted a request to this effect to the Church Parliament this week, said the president of the organization, Rita Famos, in the press on Sunday.
The investigation must show where and how often abuses are committed and what prevented the facts from being discovered, says Rita Famos in the NZZ am Sonntag.
The study is expected to cost 1.6 million francs and the results should be available by the end of 2027. The Church’s parliament, the synod, will vote on the proposal in June.
The president of the EERS says she hopes that the results of the study will also help other institutions to fight against sexual abuse, the latter being a reality also within families, sports associations and schools. “It is not possible to rest on one’s laurels and designate scapegoats, like the Catholic Church for example,” she asserts.
Eyes closed for a long time
“We have, within the Reformed Church, long had the feeling that this subject did not concern us any more than the rest of society,” admits Ms. Famos. The study by the Reformed Church in Germany, which revealed in January the existence of at least 2,225 victims of abuse, was a trigger.
Since the start of the year, the president of the EERS has heard about cases almost every week. “These are serious cases, we are talking about rape and coercion,” she says.
Unlike the Swiss Catholic Church and the German Reformed Church, the Swiss Reformed Church does not intend to sift through the files, but rather to carry out a survey. A thorough examination of the files would be much more complicated than for Catholics due to the federalist structure of the EERS, argues Rita Famos.
