Germany's Catholic Church was Tuesday due to confess to and apologise for thousands of cases of sexual abuse against children, part of a global scandal heaping pressure on the Vatican.
It will release the latest in a series of reports on sexual crimes and cover-ups spanning decades that has shaken the largest istian Church, from Europe to the United States, South America and Australia.
In Germany alone, almost 3,700 minors were abused between 1946 and 2014, according to the report prepared by the German Bishops' Conference, details of which were leaked to the media earlier this month.
Justice Minister Katarina Barley said the study was "shocking and probably just the tip of the iceberg". She urged the Church to "take responsibility for decades of concealment, cover-ups and denials". Barley also called on the Roman Catholic Church to work with state prosecutors to bring every known case to justice, and to take steps to prevent more abuse, speaking to news weekly Der Spiegel.
According to the study, 1,670 clergymen in Germany committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors, mostly boys, between 1946 and 2014, Spiegel Online reported. It points to a pattern of priests who have taken the vow of celibacy and diocese staff abusing minors. They kept the victims quiet by intimidation, instilling guilt and using their own status as figures of authority and trust.
Researchers from three universities who carried out the survey warned that the true scale of the abuse was far greater, as many documents had been "destroyed or manipulated". Only 38 percent of the accused were prosecuted by civil courts, mostly on complaints lodged by victims or their families.