Top German Catholic bishop offers resignation over sexual abuse scandal

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a Catholic archbishop in Germany, has offered his resignation to Pope Francis over the "institutional and systemic failure" in dealing with child abuse scandals.

In a statement, the archdiocese in Munich said Marx sent his resignation letter to the Pope on May 21.

"In essence, for me, it is about sharing the responsibility for the catastrophe of the sexual abuse by Church officials over the past decades," wrote Marx in the letter, according to the statement.

The examinations and reports of the past 10 years consistently showed that there had been "a lot of personal failure and administrative errors," but "also institutional or systemic failure," Marx added.

Marx presided over the German Bishops' Conference (DBK) until 2020.

In 2018, Germany's Catholic Church apologized to the victims of child sex abuse by the clergy.

Marx told a news conference in Fulda that a recent investigation revealed hundreds of cases of child sex abuse.

A four-year investigation released by the church revealed that church leaders covered up sex abuse by at least 1,670 clerics between 1946 and 2014.

At least 3,677 children were subjected to sexual exploitation, the investigation revealed.