German bishops announced higher compensation for victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church on Thursday, but victims said the proposals will fall short of expectations.
Each victim could be awarded up to 50,000 euros and even more in the most serious cases, bishop Stephan Ackermann said at the close of a four-day episcopal gathering in the western city of Mainz.
The Church has been paying victims an average sum of 5,000 euros, as well as covering their therapy fees.
Campaigners have long complained that this was not enough.
The Eckiger Tisch victims' group has demanded a one-off sum of around 300,000 euros ($330,000) per person.
But several high-ranking Church officials have rejected the proposals as too costly.
"At least we have clarity now," Matthias Katsch from Eckiger Tisch said on Tuesday, accusing the Church of limiting itself to the "minimum of what is legally enforceable".
"The Church in Germany is not prepared to take responsibility for its crimes," he said.
"It does not want to admit the second crime of disguise, cover-up and concealment committed by the institution."
An independent commission had recommended two solutions - either a one-off payment of 300,000 euros or individual compensation ranging between 40,000 and 400,000 euros depending on the severity of the crime
A study commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference and released in 2018 showed that 1,670 clergymen had committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors, mostly boys, between 1946 and 2014.
On Tuesday, the bishops chose Georg Baetzing, the reformist bishop of Limburg, as their new leader to succeed leftist Cardinal Reinhard Marx.
Bishop Baetzing will be tasked with steering the Church through multiple crises.
As well as dealing with the fallout from the sexual abuse scandal, it was seeking to answer divisive questions on issues such as priestly celibacy and the role of women.
