Msg Christoph Kühn,
Sexual predator and friend of Pope Benedict XVI
Sexual predator and friend of Pope Benedict XVI
Another scandal of sexual predation amongst senior Catholic priests is breaking - this time centered around a German priest and favourite of Pope Benedict XVI and involving forced sex with junior priests, inside the Vatican itself!
According to this report in LifeSite News, Monsignor Florian Kolfhaus and a second man – a former priest - both allege that then-senior official in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, Monsignor Christoph Kühn, violently compelled them into sexual masochistic acts.
According to LifeSite:
Kolfhaus first lodged a complaint against Kühn at the Vatican in 2006. He testifies that his abuse took place inside the offices of the Secretariat of State, as well as inside the Casa Santa Marta, a residence for Vatican prelates.
But it appears no formal investigation was launched until 2019, in spite of the fact that the Report of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, Delegate for the Pontifical Representations, was presented to the Superiors of the Secretariat of State on July 3, 2006.
The other priest has since become laicized and is now a practicing homosexual and LGBT activist. He has given his testimony for the Kolfhaus complaint that is currently underway in Germany.
LifeSite claim to have seen a WhatsApp text in which Kühn offered what amounts to a bribe to the former priest to help clear his name in respect of his and Kolfhaus' allegations.
A formal investigation was launched yesterday by the diocesan court of Eichstätt, in Bavaria, Kühn's home dioceses. At the same time a criminal investigation by the Ingolstadt prosecutor's office is underway.
Following Kolfhaus complaint in 2006 it seems nothing was done, despite persistent rumours of bizarre and inappropriate behaviour by Kühn, and despite a report by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò in which, according to Viganò, as confirmed to LifeSite:
On January 22, 2020, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò provided testimony for the Church investigation into the case because from May 1998 till July 2009 he was the Delegate for the Pontifical Representations at the Secretariat of State, a position which was responsible for the personnel of the Roman Curia subordinate to the Substitute of the Secretary of State.
In Viganò’s testimony — which LifeSite confirmed with the Archbishop that he did indeed issue it — he states that he is “aware of precise information regarding the harassment and all kinds of abuses committed by Msgr. Christoph Kühn against Msgr. Florian Kolfhaus.”
Archbishop Viganò also notes that Kolfhaus informed various individuals of the abuse including a superior at the Secretariat of State and also a Bishop in charge of preparation of candidates for diplomatic service for the Vatican.
Archbishop Viganò also reports that now-Cardinal Pietro Parolin was informed as well. Parolin at the time was Undersecretary of the Section for the Relations with States of the Secretariat of State.
In his testimony, Viganò says that there were doubts about Kühn's appointment to the Curia including this account of his behaviour when Kühn was a priest in the Nunciature in Zimbabwe:
Msgr. Christoph Kühn began his service on July 1, 1997, in the Apostolic Nunciature in Zimbabwe. During this, his first assignment, the Nuncio, His Excellency Msgr. Peter Prabhu, had to report some of the behavior of his collaborator [Kühn] that could have indicated his possible homosexual tendency. The Nuncio reported in February 1998 that on returning from a pastoral visit of several days, he was told that Fr. Kühn was very sick and that he [Kühn] wanted to see him [Prabhu] immediately. The Nuncio went to his room and knocked on the door. Kühn told him [Prabhu] to come in and revealed himself lying in his bed wearing only very skimpy panties. The Nuncio told him to get dressed and went away. Afterward, Kühn went from his bedroom to his office dressed in the same way, despite the admonition he had received, and then went down to the common area of the Nunciature in that same undressed state.
On another occasion during an encounter that lasted two hours in an Italian club, with the lights out as slides were projected, Fr. Kühn took a young blond boy about 9 or 10 years old and made him sit on top of him with his arms around the young boy.
True to form, instead of investigating the allegations and taking appropriate actions to protect any future victims and to compensate those he had already abused, in 2008 Kühn was transferes out of the Vatican and sent to Vienna, Austria, to work in nunciature (the Vatican Embassy) and in 2012 to Eichstätt, Germany, removing him from the diplomatic service altogether. According to LifeSite:
Two sources close to Pope Benedict spoke anonymously to LifeSite about this matter, suggesting that Kühn was moved to Vienna because his scandalous sexual behavior (some believed to be consensual) became too well known. One said that the Pope moved Kühn knowing of the problems and even asked Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne, to take Kühn into his diocese but Meisner refused. Another source stated: "When it became known that he [Kühn] had harassed various young men (among them also Kolfhaus), he was removed by Benedict XVI from the Vatican and sent to Vienna.” This source insisted, defending the Pope, that Benedict did personally intervene and that he punished Kühn two times by sending him into less important positions, first to Vienna (2008) and then to Eichstätt (2012), this time removing him from the diplomatic service.According to allegations in the court papers submitted to the Bavaria State Attorney, a high-ranking official in the diocese of Eichstätt states that Kühn's behaviour in Vienna went so wild, he was banned from a hotel:
He was warned to be “cautious” around Kühn “because of his somewhat difficult past.” When he asked for further information, both the finance director of the diocese and the Vicar General informed him that Kühn was known to have had some “unresolved encounters” during his station in Africa that were related to the “homosexuality of the prelate Kühn.” During his time in Vienna, they added, “it went so wild he was forbidden entrance into a hotel.”
According to this source:
[T]he Vicar General told him that the official reason for Kühn’s dismissal from Vienna was the “story with the hotel” as well as “additional non-consensual sexual contacts during his diplomatic stations.”
Bizarrly, and maybe this is the real scandal, highlighting as it does Pope Benedict's roll in defending sexual predators and paedophiles within the Catholic priesthood in order to protect the church from scandals, both in his role as Pope and in his earlier role as Pope John Paul II's enforcer, during this scandal he awarded Kühn the special distinction and designation as “Prelate of Honour of His Holiness" - normally a reward for several years as an exemplary Vatican diplomat.
Kühn's 'punishment' for his behavior in Vienna was to be appointed Canon of the Cathedral in Eichstätt, Germany by Bishop Gregor Hanke. A post which gave him a much-enhances sallary and status within the Catholic Church. He remained in that post until suspended by Bishop Hanke only when the scandal broke in the German newspaper, De Bilt, in April 2019. According to Cardinal Viganò's testimony, Bishop Hanke had previously been made aware of Kühn's sexual assaults on subordinate priests. Kühn was forbidden from celebrating public masses but neverhteless did so in the neighbouring diocese of Regensburg.
Kühn's only response so far has been to vigorously deny all the allegations against him and to accuse Kolfhaus's lawyer, Alexander Stevens, of being “a well known LGBTQ activist and supporter of the relative lifestyle and debauchery.”
As Stevens said:
The prelate obviously doesn't hesitate to even discredit the victim's lawyer. Here, in my opinion, Kuehn's strategy is once again exposed: to neutralize the enemy by deliberate untruths.
And yet another scandal of sexual predation by a Catholic cleric and the systematic blind-eye and cover-up by high-ranking senior figures in the Church heirarchy, this time involving the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI himself, is unfolding.
Pope Francis has yet to comment on the matter or to take any action against those who participated in the cover-up.
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