Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, 71, has led the Diocese of Osnabrück since 1995. He has served as deputy chairman of the German bishops’ conference since 2017.
“In the first decades of his term of office, Bishop Bode repeatedly left accused persons in their offices, even those whose danger could hardly be doubted, or appointed them to offices that made further opportunities for committing crimes possible,” according to a report prepared by the University of Osnabrück that examined the sexual abuse of minors in the diocese.
In 2015, Bishop Bode called for the private blessing of homosexual couples; in 2018, he said that there is “so much positive and good and right” in such couples. In 2020, the prelate said that Christ “became a human being, not a man.”
