(Rome) A senatorial tribunal of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome pronounced Fr. Hermann Geissler of the spiritual family The Work free of all charges. A former member of The Work accused him of molesting her in 2009.
The Tyrolean Hermann Geissler completed his priestly education in the Collegium Rudolphinum in Heiligenkreuz, which was founded by Bishop Rudolf Graber of Regensburg. In 1988, Geissler joined the spiritual family Das Werk based in Bregenz. In 1991 he received his doctorate at the Pontifical Lateran University and was ordained the same year. After a time in parish ministry, he was appointed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where from 2009 he was head of the teaching section.
At the end of January 2019, he asked the Congregation for his laicisation. By doing so, he wanted to be able to keep the Congregation safe from damage and so he could better defend against the allegations made against him. At the same time he urged the continuation of the legal proceedings against him to clarify the matter.
A judge's senate of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signatura exhonerated him with a decision of May 15. The judges did not believe the plaintiff and cleared Geissler.
The plaintiff, a former member of the religious family The Work, had a brief sexual relationship with a co-brother in 2008. In 2009, she had sexually harassed Father Geissler, also a brother. In 2011 she left the community "by mutual agreement.” However, she then began a campaign and filed a complaint against the two religious.
Numerous media reported about her as a “victim of abuse,” also internationally. Her "case,” despite not being fact checked, was the subject of feminist documentary films that were broadcast as an indictment on public service television (BR). Herder Verlag published a book about her "case". In the autumn of 2018, the television station Arte broadcast the documentation of God’s abused servants, in which her “case" was also broadly treated. Ready supporters
can always be found in the fight against the Church and especially "conservative" religious communities.
After leaving the Order, it became known that she is married to another priest and has a child with him. The priest was suspended on it a divinis.
Kathpedia writes about the plaintiff that she is "campaigning against the Church and consecrated congregations." The judges may have seen it this way as well.
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Picture: The factory FSO
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG
