The head of the German bishops conference formally apologized for sexual abuse in the church, saying it “has been denied, turned away from and covered up for far too long.”

“Sexual abuse is a crime,” Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising told a news conference on September 25 in Fulda, Germany. “And whoever is guilty of it must be punished by law.”

The bishops met in a plenary session in Fulda and released a study, conducted on behalf of the Bishops’ Conference from 2010 to 2014, on abuse. The study, leaked earlier in September, researched an estimated 3,700 sex abuse cases in the German church.

Marx said that, although prevention measures had been put in place by the Bishops’ Conference, it was not enough.

“I feel shame for looking away from many who did not want to believe what happened and who did not provide care for the victims. That also applies to me,” the cardinal said. “We did not listen to the victims.”

“As a church, we want to build up new trust. I know that many people do not believe us anymore. And I understand that,” he said. “But I hope very much that we can earn trust again.”

Criminologists who conducted the study were present in a panel to discuss their findings and answer media questions.

The details of the research project’s findings in all 27 German dioceses were released. Ten dioceses were selected for research dating back to 1946. Within the remaining 17 dioceses, the research focused only on abuse dating from 2000. The names of those accused were withheld from the document.