A man abused by a priest at a young age receives pain money.
How high the sum is, he does not want to say.
With a settlement in court, a long pain money trial of an Upper Bavarian abuse victim against the Catholic Church has come to an end.
As the district court Traunstein announced on Monday, the plaintiff and the archdiocese of Munich and Freising have agreed a good four years after the filing of the complaint on payment of a pain allowance.
At the request of the injured party, the sum was not published. In return, he took back the complaint against the Essen diocesan priest Peter H.. Originally, the man had demanded at least 300,000 euros in pain money.
The basis for the final agreement is an agreement appointed by the court and since 21. July 2025 present psychiatric expert opinion. Accordingly, the psychological and social development of the plaintiff is also due to the abuse in the mid-1990s.
At the top of the corridor
On this basis, according to the communication in September 2025, the court proposed a corridor for a compensation payment of pain allowances that was appropriate in its view.
The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising had offered to pay the maximum amount mentioned therein; the plaintiff had agreed. The archdiocese welcomed the agreement.
The now 42-year-old man had claimed to have once as an elementary school student from the then pastor in the Upper Bavarian Garching an der Alz sexually abused and thus to have been severely damaged for his entire life.
That's what the doctors said in the trial
Already during the trial, several doctors had been heard as witnesses who had treated or examined the plaintiff. According to her statements, the man, who comes from difficult family circumstances, developed a severe addiction problem and personality disorder.
Prison stays would have alternated with withdrawal attempts and short periods of abstinence. Abuse is considered as a co-cause of the later problems of the man, but not as the sole reason.
At times, the emeritus, now deceased Pope Benedict XVI was also among the defendants. He was Munich Archbishop from 1977 to 1982, when the decision was made to accept Peter H. from Essen to the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.
According to the regional court, this part of the proceedings, which was separated in 2023, continues to rest, since the legal successor of Benedict XVI has not yet been named.
The case of Peter H. is considered one of the most prominent abuse cases of the Catholic Church in Germany. Since 2010, he has made headlines worldwide, also because of the references to Benedict XVI.
The clergyman passed away at minors in at least four locations in North Rhine-Westphalia and Upper Bavaria.