Belgians molested by Catholic priests to file suit against Vatican
Belgians molested by Catholic priests will go ahead with their legal proceedings against the Vatican for damages despite an offer by local bishops to compensate them, their lawyers said on Wednesday. Pope Benedict enjoys diplomatic immunity but other Vatican officials and Belgian bishops will be summoned to testify in the case, lawyer Walter van Steenbrugge said.
Christine Mussche, another lawyer for about 70 victims, said the Vatican failed to intervene even when it learned about the scandals in the Belgian Church. Over 500 cases of alleged abuse have been registered in the past year. “There were instructions from the pope that said those things had to be kept secret and silent,” she said, adding the Church could be guilty of harmful neglect under Belgian law.
The Belgian bishops’ conference said on Monday that it would set up a commission to compensate victims molested so long ago that their cases can no longer be prosecuted. Some reported cases go back several decades. “As long as there are no concrete results from the arbitrage commission, the victims will continue the procedure,” Mussche told a news conference.
Several victims explained why they were part of the suit which the lawyers said they would file in Ghent in September.
Read the full story by Robert-Jan Bartunek here.
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Belgium looks to Pope Benedict to help end its clerical sexual abuse crisis
Belgium’s politicians and prelates are looking to Pope Benedict to help end a clerical sexual abuse crisis that is crippling the local Catholic Church and frustrating judicial authorities unable to resolve it.
Calls to punish former Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who shocked Belgium last week by publicly excusing abuse cases that caused his downfall last year, have come from the Belgian prime minister, justice and foreign ministers and several senior politicians. Belgian bishops have denounced Vangheluwe, 74, who quit as bishop of Bruges after admitting to molesting his nephew, and several bishops have made clear they want swift punitive action from the Vatican, which took control of his case this month.
But there is no consensus on what Benedict, who has the final say on Vangheluwe’s fate, should do. He has shied away from stiff punishments for bishops caught in the abuse crisis plaguing the Church in Europe and the United States.
Belgian justice cannot intervene because the abuse cases, which Vangheluwe admits to, all occurred before the 20-year statute of limitations for them. Church law has no provision to defrock a bishop although the Vatican has done it in rare cases.
“The Church … should be much more severe and much more complete than what has been said up until now,” Justice Minister Stefaan De Clerck, a Christian Democrat, said on Friday.
Guy Harpigny, the bishop of Tournai, said: “I hope the Holy See understands that we need its help to clear up this affair – it’s time for it to get to work.”
Belgium urges Vatican to impose harsh punishment on sex abuse bishop
Belgium’s justice minister urged the Vatican on Friday to impose stiff punishment on a disgraced Catholic bishop who denies being a paedophile despite admitting to sexually abusing two of his own nephews. Stefaan de Clerck spoke out amid a media uproar after former Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe defended himself on television by saying the abuse he committed was only “superficial.”
Vangheluwe, who quit his post and went into hiding a year ago after admitting to molesting a nephew, confessed in the interview on Thursday evening that he had molested a second one. He left Belgium last week under Vatican orders to seek “spiritual and psychological treatment” abroad and Belgian media say he is now in a French monastery. The Vatican has said the final decision on disciplining him lies with Pope Benedict.
“The Church must take up this case and see what sanction it should impose. It should be much more severe and much more complete than what has been said up until now,” De Clerck, a Christian Democrat, told RTL radio. “We expect the Church to punish him,” he said. “They told him to leave the country — that was also to shut him up. Making comments trying to minimise what happened is unacceptable.”
The Vatican has been reluctant to impose stiff punishments on bishops found guilty of covering up sexual abuse of youths by priests under their authority. Three bishops in Ireland and one in Germany have resigned but others accused of mismanagement have held onto their jobs.
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This statement that a Catholic cannot prosecute a case against the pope is religious bigotry pure and simple.
As Dr. Mc Hugh–a professional blogger of hate against the church can attest–Catholics can be fair minded about their church even hate their own church as she clearly does.
Can you imagine saying that blacks cannot be seated on juries in which black criminal defendants are charged? But here since her bigotry is directed against the Catholic church it is tolerated as anti-Catholicism is the bigotry of the left intelligentsia.
Disgraced Belgian Catholic bishop admits he abused second nephew
A disgraced former Belgian Catholic bishop has admitted that he had abused a second nephew, but said that he did not consider himself a paedophile. Roger Vangheluwe, 74, resigned as bishop of Bruges a year ago after admitting to sexually abusing one nephew and is still awaiting a final verdict from the Vatican. In his first public appearance in a year, Vangheluwe gave a long interview to Belgian television station VT4 that was broadcast live Thursday evening.
He began by saying how sorry he was and then gave details of his abuse of two nephews, one for some 13 years, the other for less than a year. “It had nothing to do with sexuality. I have often been involved with children and I never felt the slightest attraction. It was a certain intimacy that took place,” Vangheluwe said. “I don’t have the impression at all that I am a paedophile. It was really just a small relationship. I did not have the feeling that my nephew was against it, quite the contrary.”
Vangheluwe said that the abuse had stopped some 25 years ago, before he was a bishop, and that he had managed to live with his past in the intervening period.
“How did it begin? As with all families. When they came to visit, the nephews slept with me. It began as a game with the boys. It was never a question of rape, there was never physical violence used. He never saw me naked and there was no penetration.”
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Vatican says sex abuser bishop leaves Belgium for undisclosed destination
A Belgian Roman Catholic bishop who resigned in disgrace after admitting to sexually abusing his nephew has left the country for “spiritual and psychological treatment” abroad, a Vatican ambassador has said. Former Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, 74, went into hiding after shocking the Belgian Church with his public confession in April 2010. He first stayed at a Belgian monastery but later left it, and his exact whereabouts were not made public.
Archbishop Giacinto Berloco, the papal nuncio or ambassador to Belgium, said in a statement the Vatican’s doctrinal department had investigated his case and decided he needed to go abroad for treatment. He did not say where the bishop went. “Bishop Vangheluwe, who since his resignation has lived in different places without a fixed address, has already left Belgium to submit to this decision,” he said in the statement on Saturday.
Vangheluwe was the most senior Catholic cleric to admit to molesting a child amid all the sexual abuse cases exposed in Europe over the past two years. Other bishops who have resigned in Ireland were accused of covering up abuse cases.
Berloco spoke out after the Belgian daily Het Laatste Nieuws reported Vangheluwe had taken refuge in the Vatican embassy, a step that would shield him from Belgian justice authorities. He said the Vatican’s powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had decided that “even if the statute of limitations for the sexual abuse of his nephew had lapsed under canon law, Bishop Vangheluwe should leave Belgium and undertake a period of spiritual and psychological treatment.”
Former Belgian Catholic leader Danneels says not responsible for abuse
Belgium’s former top Roman Catholic bishop told a parliamentary inquiry on Tuesday into the sexual abuse of children by clerics that he was not responsible for other Belgian bishops.
Belgium’s lower house set up the inquiry to examine an issue that has rocked the Catholic Church worldwide and resulted in hundreds of victims coming forward. Widespread sexual abuse of minors by Belgian clerics drove at least 13 victims to suicide, a Church commission said in September, recording 475 cases.
Tape recordings released in Belgium this summer made it clear that Cardinal Godfried Danneels, who until January was archbishop of Brussels and head of the Belgian bishops’ conference, was aware of abuse by Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe but had discouraged immediate public statements by the victim.
“I cannot give orders to other bishops. I have no legal authority over other bishoprics and I think that is at the base of a lot of the problems that have been mentioned here,” Danneels told the inquiry on Tuesday. He denied any effort to hush up cases of abuse.
Some MPs were disappointed with his four-hour testimony. “Cardinal Danneels missed an opportunity to improve his image,” said Green deputy Stefaan Van Hecke.
The roman catholic church is the most evil, most corrupt, most dishonest, most perverted and most inferior of all the Christian churches in the world.
European far right courts Israel in stepped-up anti-Islam drive
Far-right political parties in Europe are stepping up their anti-Muslim rhetoric and forging ties across borders, even going so far as to visit Israel to hail the Jewish state as a bulwark against militant Islam.
Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front has shocked the French political elite in recent days by comparing Muslims who pray outside crowded mosques — a common sight especially during the holy month of Ramadan — to the World War Two Nazi occupation. Oskar Freysinger, a champion of the Swiss ban on minarets, warned a far-right meeting in Paris on Saturday against “the demographic, sociological and psychological Islamisation of Europe”. German and Belgian activists also addressed the crowd.
Geert Wilders, whose populist far-right party supports the Dutch minority government, told Reuters last week he was organising an “international freedom alliance” to link grass-roots groups active in “the fight against Islam”. Earlier this month, Wilders visited Israel and backed its West Bank settlements, saying Palestinians there should move to Jordan. Like-minded German, Austrian, Belgian, Swedish and other far-rightists were on their own Israel tour at the same time. “Our culture is based on Christianity, Judaism and humanism and (the Israelis) are fighting our fight,” Wilders said. “If Jerusalem falls, Amsterdam and New York will be next.”
Campaigns aimed at Muslims have been gaining ground in Europe, most notably with the Swiss minaret ban last year and France’s law this year against full facial veils in public, which Wilders said the Netherlands should copy next year. Support for these steps has spread beyond anti-immigrant parties and towards the political centre as globalisation and the ageing of Europe’s population fuel voters’ concerns about national sovereignty, according to leading French analyst Dominique Reynié.
Pie in the face for controversial Belgian Catholic archbishop (video)
It has not been a good few weeks for Brussels Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard, the embattled leader of Belgium’s Roman Catholics.
The outspoken conservative prelate has been under fire from his brother bishops, Catholic publications and politicians for weeks for mishandling the Church’s sexual abuse crisis, calling AIDS a kind of punishment for sexual freedom and urging leniency for retired priests accused of sexually abusing minors in the past.
His spokesman quit last Tuesday, saying he could no longer work for a man he compared to someone who drives down a highway against the traffic and believes all the other drivers are wrong.
The series of misfortunes has now reached new heights — or lows — with the news that he got a pie in the face during an All Saints Day service last Monday in the cathedral in Brussels. A young person dressed in black ran up and “pied” him as he stood at a lectern while the choir sang a hymn. The embattled archbishop calmly cleaned off his glasses and licked his fingers clean. One newspaper reported that he later joked it was quite a tasty pie.
RTL television quoted diocesan spokeswoman Claire Jonard as saying: “The archbishop continued the service and did not want to file charges against the aggressor. We have no idea who it was or what his intentions were.”
Here’s the video now making the rounds on Belgian and French websites. Entarté!!! means “pied!!!”
Spokesman for embattled Belgian archbishop quits, cites loss of trust
The spokesman for Belgium’s Roman Catholic leader quit on Tuesday, citing a loss of trust in the archbishop who has caused a storm with harsh comments on AIDS and caring words for some paedophile priests.
Jürgen Mettepenningen, a theologian who became Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard’s spokesman in August, announced his decision only days after the prelate agreed to stop speaking in public until Christmas to calm the storm engulfing the Church.
His resignation reflected growing criticism of Léonard within his own church, where bishops have cautiously spoken out against their leader and lay Catholics are turning increasingly caustic. Politicians have also stepped up criticism of him. It also highlighted the damage that scandals of clerical sex abuse of minors have done to the Church in Europe, especially in Belgium and Ireland where bishops reacted in defensive ways that further angered Catholics and public officials.
“I no longer want, can and will act as spokesman for Archbishop Leonard,” said Mettepenningen, 35, in a statement announcing his immediate resignation.
“Archbishop Léonard has sometimes acted like someone who’s driving against the traffic and thinks everyone else is wrong,” he later told journalists (see full statement in French here). “For three months, I was his GPS but the driver holds the steering wheel and decides which way to go. All too often, I had to indicte that the route should be recalculated. But if the driver continues on his way, if he is blind to the accidents caused, then the GPS doesn’t have to wait to be dismissed. It should withdraw by itself because its function has become superfluous.”
“Archbishop Léonard does not take his leadership duties seriously,” Mettepenningen added. “But it is above all his surrealist attitude regarding the turmoil stirred up by his remarks that I take too seriously to still support this.”
Léonard, an abrasive outspoken conservative, broke his vow of silence on Monday to defend a comment from last week that prosecuting retired priests on charges of sexual abuse of minors was “a kind of vengeance” on men no longer in pastoral work. In an earlier comment that also triggered an uproar, he called AIDS “immanent justice” for promiscuous behaviour.
The Catholic Church is responsible not only for the torture of these innocent victims, but through the ages it has been responsible for the slaughter of millions! From the beginning there has been the sexual abuse of children, Popes and bishops have had wives and mistresses and children.
There were the crusades, the Inquisistion, The concordant with Hitler so that the church is just as responsible as Hitler for the slaughter of the Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Gypsy’s, and anyone else that Hitler felt like slaughtering.
And they try to cover up everything they do. or put a different light on it. But we do not have to worry soon God will destroy her as Part of Babylon the Great. So her sins will be exposed and taken care of. Revelation 18:2-8.
Top Belgian Catholic vows silence after uproar
Belgium’s Roman Catholic leader has sworn off public remarks until Christmas after outraging public opinion twice this month with jarring comments about AIDS and a call for mercy for retired paedophile priests.
Brussels Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard, already under fire because of the scandal of sexual abuse of minors by priests, caused a storm two weeks ago when he said in a new book that AIDS was “a sort of inherent justice.” Politicians, abuse victims and some leading lay Catholics rounded on him again this week after he said that prosecuting retired priests for abuse they committed long ago was “a kind of vengeance” that they should be spared.
“We’re in a very serious crisis and the last thing we need is more commotion,” Leonard’s spokesman, Jürgen Mettepenningen, told Belgium’s VTM television on Thursday evening. “I’ve agreed with Archbishop Léonard that there should now be as much radio silence as possible until Christmas” so that the Church can concentrate on overcoming the crisis and carrying out its main task of preaching the Gospel, he said.
Losing patience with the bishops, the lower house of parliament decided on Thursday to set up a special commission to investigate the abuse crisis. One deputy suggested changing tax laws to reduce a state subsidy the Church receives.
Senator Rik Torfs, a canon lawyer, suggested Catholics sign a petition for Pope Benedict to remove Leonard from his top job in Belgium by “promoting him to Rome.” He said: “The archbishop doesn’t speak in our name and we didn’t want him.”
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