Graffiti attack on Munich's churches: protest against abuse scandals!

Graffiti attack on Munich's churches: protest against abuse scandals!

In the early morning hours of September 26, 2025, an incident occurred in Munich that once again put the relationship of many citizens to the Catholic Church to the test. A 29-year-old woman is suspected of having daubed several important church buildings with graffiti. The places affected include the Frauenkirche, the seat of the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, the Theatinerkirche, the Ludwigskirche, the Jesuit Church of St. Michael, the Dominicus Center and the St. Gertrud Community Center, such as the South German newspaper reported.

The incident came to light when a witness reported at around 1:30 a.m. on the night of Sunday to Monday that a woman was daubing the door of the Theatine Church and some street lamps with white paint. A police patrol immediately arrived at the scene and reported the woman for damage to property. During the course of Monday morning, further reports of similar incidents were received in the city. Letters were dropped that refer to the long-running abuse scandals within the Catholic Church.

Background to the abuse scandals

This current event cannot be viewed in isolation. The Catholic abuse scandal has been going on for many years and has affected many of those affected. As the daily news reports, an initiative of those affected, the “Angular Table”, draws an extremely negative assessment of the processing of the scandalous event. The incidents have been in the public eye since 2010 and many of those affected feel abandoned by society while the investigation appears to have failed.

The MHG study published in 2018 showed that a total of 3,677 children and young people were sexually abused by clerics in Germany between 1946 and 2014, although the number of unreported cases is probably even higher. The Statista shows that in 22.6% of cases no age is known and the children and young people affected were often not even 13 years old.

The affected voices are calling, among other things, for a suspension of the statute of limitations for compensation claims, as the dioceses handle the statute of limitations very differently. A clear example of this is the Archdiocese of Cologne, which lifted the statute of limitations and awarded a person affected compensation of 300,000 euros. The initiative also calls for political support in the form of a compensation fund to adequately help those affected, as Matthias Katsch, the initiative's chairman, puts it.

Investigations by the Munich police

Department 4 of the Munich criminal police, which is responsible for religiously motivated crime, has now taken over the investigation into the graffiti incident. It is being investigated whether the 29-year-old is also responsible for the other damage caused. Interestingly, the woman was previously unknown to the police. This shows how deeply rooted the emotions and resentment are in the population about the cases of abuse, which are now also being expressed in this way.

The coming days will show how the investigation progresses and whether further connections to the ongoing scandals within the Catholic Church can be uncovered. The discussion about responsibility and transparency remains hot and noticeable, not only in Munich, but throughout Germany.