At least they're *our* perverts...

Sacramentum Vitae Blog ^ | June 26, 2010 | Michael Liccione

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Saturday, June 26, 2010

At least they're our perverts...

Already numb, I can't work up enough outrage about the exposé, published two days ago in The Brussels Journal, of "the fall of the Belgian Church" by Alexandra Colen, now a member of the Belgian parliament. (We can't say we're 'shocked' anymore, since everybody instantly repeats the word and thus evokes Captain Renault's joke in Casablanca.) Here's the opening paragraph of Colen's piece:

In Belgium today [June 24], police searched the residence of the Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and the crypt of the Archbishop’s cathedral in Mechelen. They were looking for evidence of cover-ups in the ongoing investigation into widespread pedophilia practices within the Belgian church in the decades during which Cardinal Godfried Danneels was Archbishop. Danneels retired in January of this year.

The article proceeds to recount some of the lurid details, which the author was personally involved in discovering and protesting as a Catholic parent. Let the squeamish beware.

We've seen versions of this movie already, over and over, with different characters and plot twists in quite a number of countries. Yet for those not already depleted by outrage fatigue, two factors make this one more outrageous than most. I shall describe them in the hope and with the prayer that the right lessons will be learned by some of the right people.

The first kicker is how Cardinal Danneels was, himself, enabled to enable the problems for three decades. What makes it so astonishing is that, as the article makes clear, the problems were public knowledge for much of that time. So how did he get away with it?

Two reasons. For one, and as the MSM have made sure we know, the Vatican wasn't aggressive enough in disciplining evildoers. But the other reason is the MSM themselves. Danneels was a darling of both ecclesial and secular "progressives" throughout his 30-year reign. Since progressives dominate the MSM in Western Europe even more than here, the damning facts were reported only haltingly, and no drumbeat of outrage was sounded against Danneels or his minions.

Although there's no evidence that Danneels himself committed sexual acts that are criminal, the evidence is overwhelming that he did not acknowledge the gravity of what he was enabling right under his nose. On the charitable assumption that his failure was due to ignorance, the ignorance itself was culpable. Somehow, though, I find it hard to believe that it was just ignorance. By 2002, the sex-abuse-and-coverup scandals in the Church had become impossible for anybody to ignore. I think it more likely that, for whatever reasons, Danneels was swayed by some underlying sympathy with the perps. But the Belgian media didn't want to talk about the long-running scandal for a long time, even aside from the question of Danneel's motives for enabling it. Both their and Danneel's attitude seems to have been: "They may be perverts, but at least they're our perverts." If Danneel's theological and political orientation had been conservative, his own failure might still have been what it's been, but you can bet the farm that the MSM would have striven to bring him down.

A similar dynamic has operated in favor of Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles. Slated to retire and be replaced by a Latino coadjutor, he has long presided over the most extensive sex-abuse scandal of any U.S. diocese. Payouts have been enormous and, almost certainly, more will eventually be ordered. Yet Mahony openly stonewalled the civil authorities for years without ever being prosecuted for obstruction of justice—or even eliciting a widespread campaign for him to resign, as Cardinal Law did seven years ago in Boston. None of that is in dispute. How could it happen? Simple: ecclesial and political "progressives" such as Mahony don't exactly get a pass, but are held to lower standards because their MSM allies don't want to undermine their larger cause. The young are thus sacrificed to political expediency as much by the Left as by anybody else. But you're not going to hear about that from the MSM, especially when it comes to the higher incidence of sexual abuse in public-school systems.

The other kicker in the Danneels case is the dilemma it poses for the conventional progressive wisdom. Popes rarely depose bishops, and the more prominent a bishop's see, the less likely he is to be deposed. That's probably how it should be. The pope is not the CEO of Catholic Church, Inc; he is chief bishop among his brother bishops. His exercise of jurisdiction over the Church universal must and does take due account of that. But amid the current agony of scandal, many progs will have none of it. They all want the Church to be less centralized when that would weaken Rome's doctrinal authority, but want her more centralized when that would help prevent things such as the sex-abuse-and-coverup scandal—except, of course, when the guy covering up is himself a progressive. Then we must remember collegiality.

Of course they can't have it both ways. But as Chesterton loved to show, the Catholic Church has always faced mutually incompatible charges. That's one of the reasons I'm Catholic. When you're always damned if you do and damned if you don't, you're probably on firmer ground than your enemies.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

The Disgrace of Cardinal Danneels and the Belgian Catholic Church

This past week, Belgian police raided the headquarters of the Catholic Church in Belgian, as well as the home and office of recently retired Archbishop Godfried Danneels, during an investigation into the sexual abuse of children.

Rorate Caeli provides the full text of Pope Benedict’s letter to Abp. André Joseph Léonard, Archbishop of Mechlin-Brussels and President of the Belgian Episcopal Conference, responding to the unfortunate series of events:

I wish to express to you, dear Brother in the Episcopate, as well as to all Bishops of Belgium, my closeness and my solidarity in this moment of sadness, in which, with certain surprising and deplorable methods, searches were carried out in Mechlin Cathedral and in places where the Belgian Episcopate were assembled in plenary session. During that meeting, aspects related to the abuse of minors by members of the clergy were to have been treated, among other things. I have myself repeated numerous times that these grave facts should be treated by the civil order and by the canonical order in reciprocal respect for the specificity and autonomy of each one. In this sense, I wish that justice will follow its course, ensuring the rights of persons and institutions, in respect for victims, with the recognition, without prejudices, of those who wish to collaborate with it and with the refusal of everything that could darken the noble duties that are ascribed to it.

As Rorate Caeli notes, there is a “one-sideness” and “tone-deafness” to the papal remarks. The impression is exacerbated by Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone,

who characterized the Belgian police’s raid as “a kidnapping, a grave and inconceivable fact”, having “no precedent even in communist regimes.”

However, a report from the Flemish De Standard casts light on the investigation of the tombs. English translation via Google, so pardon the choppiness (HT again: Rorate Caeli):

“There are traces of tampering can be seen around the tomb of Cardinal Leo Suenens. Maybe that aroused the attention of police. Suenens was buried in 1996. The cardinal should nevertheless very prescient than to have hidden files. “

Local television to watch the officers walked inside the cathedral Thursday with crowbar and hammer drill. That fueled rumors that they broke open tombs in the crypt. The Vatican yesterday expressed outrage at the “desecration by the Belgian judicial authorities.”

“Well, desecration,” says the guide. ‘Investigators have two holes drilled in the wall that separates the two burial niches in the outside world. Behind it are a dozen boxes. Through those holes, they looked around with a camera, but found nothing. Can you call that sacrilege? Maybe they also want to break into boxes. But when you consider who it is, do you think twice[?]“

Meanwhile, the National Catholic Reporter translates a La Stampa interview with Fr. Rik Devillè, a retired Belgian priest and anti-pedophilia crusader:

The Belgian church instituted its own commission to investigate charges of abuse, the Adriaenssens Commission. Is that not enough?

The problem was its connection with the Archdiocese, and the absence of either a lay component internally or a connection with the civil authorities. I always hoped that a truly independent commission would be formed, an organism whose objective was to help justice take its course. That must be the way. It’s not up to the church to decide who violated the law and who should be punished.

Do you believe that Belgium is a special case? Or is the plague of sexual abuse by clergy a common evil?

It happens everywhere, believe me. Belgium believed itself to be an exception because no case ever came to light. Yet as early as 1994, I had collected 82 accusations. The victims wanted to be heard by the church, they wanted to break the curse. It’s been useless, at least up to now.

You have said that you spoke with Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the former primate of the Belgian church, but he says he doesn’t remember.

I spoke with him about my files on two occasions, in the first half of the 1990s. I advised him of the problem, and I don’t know what he did afterwards. On one occasion, however, I remember that the cardinal became angry. He said this wasn’t my job and that I should stay out of it.

Do you think he said that to hide something?

The bishops have a long history over their shoulders of silence and omissions. They protect the guilty, and not the victims.

The conservative blog Brussels Journal has a must-read account by Alexandra Colen, homeschooling mother and Member of the Belgian Parliament for Antwerp, on Catholic life during the reign of Cardinal Danneels:

Since the revelation in April that Cardinal Danneels’s close friend and collaborator, Mgr Roger Vangheluwe, the Bishop of Bruges, had been a practicing pedophile throughout, and even before, his career as a bishop, victims have gained confidence that they will be taken seriously, and complaints have been pouring in, both to the courts and to the extra-judicial investigation committee of the archdiocese. The new archbishop Mgr. André-Joseph Léonard, has urged victims to take their case to the courts.

His predecessor, the liberal Cardinal Danneels, who was very popular with the press in Belgium and abroad, was Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and Primate of Belgium from 1979 until 2010. The sympathy for pedophile attitudes and arguments among the Belgian bishops during this period was no secret, especially since 1997 when the fierce controversy about the catechism textbook Roeach made the headlines. The editors of Roeach were Prof. Jef Bulckens of the Catholic University of Leuven and Prof. Frans Lefevre of the Seminary of Bruges. The textbook contained a drawing which showed a naked baby girl [which describes the genital stimulation of toddlers as "good fun"].

I told Cardinal Danneels that, although I was a member of Parliament for the Flemish-secessionist party Vlaams Blok, I was addressing him as a Catholic parent “who wishes to remain faithful to the papal authority and also wishes to educate her children this way.” I insisted that he forbid the use of this book in the catechism lessons: “This is why I insist – yes, the days of meekly asking are over – that you forbid the use of this ‘catechism book’ in our children’s classrooms.”

Today this case, that dates from 12 years ago, assumes a new and ominous significance. Especially now that I know that Mgr Roger Vangheluwe, the pedophile child molesting Bishop of Bruges, was the supervising bishop of both institutions – the Catholic University of Leuven and the Seminary of Bruges – whence came the editors in chief of this perverted “catechism” textbook.

Monsignor Vangheluwe not only entertained pedophile ideas, but also practiced them on his 11-year old nephew. Hundreds of children who were not raped physically were molested spiritually during the catechism lessons.

After I started my campaign against the Roeach textbook, many parents contacted me to voice their concerns. Stories of other practices in the Catholic education system poured in. There were schools where children were taught to put condoms over artificial penises and where they had to watch videos showing techniques of masturbation and copulation.

Because Cardinal Danneels refused to respond to requests to put an end to these practices, I and hundreds of concerned parents gathered in front of his palace on 15 October 1997. We carried placards with the text “Respect for parents and children,” and we said the rosary. Cardinal Danneels refused to receive a delegation of the demonstrators. “I shall not be pressured,” he said in the libertine magazine Humo on 21 October 1997. The Archbishop’s door remained closed …

Those expressing frustration over the impertinence of the Belgian police’s raid are encouraged to read the accounts of Alexandra Colen and Fr. Rik Devillè.

Finally, Michael Liccione (Sacramentum Vitae) asks the question:

Cardinal Danneels was, himself, enabled to enable the problems for three decades. What makes it so astonishing is that … the problems were public knowledge for much of that time. So how did he get away with it?

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[Brian Kopp DPM]

Tuesday June 29, 2010

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Belgian Church Raids Compared to Babylonian Chastisement

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By Hilary White

BRUSSELS, June 28, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A police raid, the detaining of bishops and the confiscation of files on priestly sexual abuse can be seen as a form of chastisement for decades of open dissent from Catholic teaching by Church authorities in Belgium, a prominent pro-life leader has said.

Brussels police raided the offices of the Brussels Archdiocese on Thursday, searched the cathedral and seized computers and files from the residences of both the current archbishop of Brussels and Cardinal Godfreed Daneels who retired as the head of the church in Belgium in January. Police said the raids, conducted while bishops were meeting in the building, were in connection with allegations of sex abuse by clergy and the Belgian hierarchy’s long history of cover-ups.

Fr. Tom Euteneuer, author and head of Human Life International (HLI) told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) that he stands with the pope and unconditionally condemns the actions of police as “a massive violation of confidentiality” of victims who had confided in Church authorities, and a “brutal police action” against the Church.

At the same time, however, he pointed to the years of public antagonism by Belgium’s Catholic leadership to the Church’s sexual moral teaching that furnished the heavily secularist government with the excuse needed for the attack.

“How is it possible,” Fr. Euteneuer said, “to see this as anything but retribution for the sins of a church that has for the past four decades been in a state of continuous public dissent?”

The raids were denounced by Pope Benedict XVI who decried the “surprising and deplorable manner in which searches were carried out.” Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s Cardinal Secretary of State, launched a formal protest to the Belgian ambassador to the Holy See saying, “there are not precedents - not even under the old Communist regimes” for such treatment of the Church by secular authorities.

Fr. Euteneuer said that, “God sometimes allows the actions of pagans to punish and correct the abuses of His beloved people. Whatever the interpretation of the aggressive action of the police, let’s just take it as a wake-up call for a return to orthodoxy and fidelity to Christ.”

On Thursday, police burst into the cathedral of Mechelen-Brussels even searching the crypt where past bishops are buried. They confiscated 450 files containing reports of sexual offences by clergy that had already been submitted to an internal Church investigation committee. Police sealed off the building where bishops were holding a meeting, detaining them for several hours and confiscating their mobile phones.

Pope Benedict XVI, in a message to the recently appointed archbishop of Brussels, Andre-Mutien Leonard, asked authorities to respect the rights of victims, whose statements, given in confidence to the Church’s independent investigation committee, were also seized.

The Belgian bishops have responded to the raids by shutting the committee down. Its chairman, child psychiatrist Peter Adriaenssens, said that Belgian authorities had betrayed the trust of nearly 500 victims who had made complaints over the past two months. He blamed state prosecutors for pursuing victims too traumatized to speak to police. “We were bait,” he said.

Cardinal Danneels, who has long been a leading light of the Catholic Church’s left-liberal “progressivist” wing in Europe, was said to be “seriously shocked” by the police’s actions. A spokesman said “I can assure you that the cardinal had envisioned his retirement very differently.”

Danneels, for decades a major European voice of opposition to the Catholic teaching on artificial contraception and homosexuality, was the close colleague and protector of Bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Bruges. Vangheluwe resigned in April after admitting to having sexually abused boys, including his own nephew, before and throughout his time as a bishop. Following these revelations the Church established the independent commission which was immediately flooded with hundreds of complaints of sexual abuse by priests.

A long-time favourite of the world’s secular media, Danneels figured prominently in an article published on the same day as the raids, detailing opposition to efforts by parents to stop a sexually explicit “catechism text” written and approved by Belgian Catholic authorities for use by children and teens.

The text includes a drawing of a naked infant girl, captioned to show her saying that she enjoyed having sex acts being performed on her and watching her parents have sex. Politician and author Alexandra Colen quoted a letter she had sent to Danneels in 1997 protesting the text that she said, “breeds pedophiles.” She said that when she went public in her fight against the text, she was joined by hundreds of parents who revealed more explicit sex practices being taught to children in Catholic schools around the country.

At the news website Brussels Journal, Colen said that in response to protests against the text, Danneels launched a media campaign vilifying Colen and other parents. Colen points to the close relationship between Danneels and Vangheluwe, who was the supervising bishop of the Catholic University of Leuven and the Seminary of Bruges where the text was written and edited.

She writes that, given the revelations about Vangheluwe, “Today this case, that dates from 12 years ago, assumes a new and ominous significance.”

See LifeSiteNews.com’s Special Report:

Roots of Sexual Abuse in the Church: Homosexuality, Dissent and Modernism
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/jun/020618a.html

[Brian Kopp DPM]

www.catholicnewsagency.com

Pope says greatest danger to Church is internal pollution

Pope Benedict XVI at today's Mass for Sts. Peter and Paul.

Related articles:

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• Farewell ceremony in the courtyard of the Presidential Palace, Address of the Holy Father
• Visit to the Aida Refugee Camp in Bethlehem, Address of the Holy Father
• Address of the Holy Father at the Visit to Regina Pacis Center in Amman

Vatican City, Jun 29, 2010 / 11:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- During his address for today's feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the Holy Father asserted that the “greatest danger” to the Church is not external persecution, but the “negative attitudes” of the world that can pollute and “infect the Christian community” from within.

The Pope made his remarks on Tuesday morning at Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, where he concelebrated with 38 metropolitan archbishops whom he bestowed the pallium upon after delivering his homily.

The pallium is a white stole made of wool from lambs blessed and presented to the Pope each year on the feast of St. Agnes. It is reserved for use by the Pope and all metropolitan archbishops and expresses communion with the Bishop of Rome.

In his homily, Pope Benedict first reflected on the theme of freedom for the Church, emphasizing that Sts. Peter and Paul demonstrate that “God is close to his faithful servants and frees them from all evil, and frees the Church from negative powers.”

Speaking on Christ's promise in the Gospel that the “powers of hell shall not prevail” on the Church, the Pontiff explained that this not only “includes the historical experience of persecution suffered by Peter and Paul and other witnesses of the Gospel,” but “it goes further, wanting to protect especially against threats of a spiritual order.”

“Indeed, if we think of the two millennia of Church history, we can see that - as the Lord Jesus had announced, Christians have never been lacking in trials, which in some periods and places have assumed the character of real persecution.

“These, however, despite the suffering they cause, are not the greatest danger for the Church,” the Pope said.

“In fact,” he noted, “it suffers greatest damage from what pollutes the Christian faith and life of its members and its communities, eroding the integrity of the Mystical Body, weakening its ability to prophesy and witness, tarnishing the beauty of its face.”

Reflecting on the Scripture readings, the Pope explained that the “Second Letter to Timothy – of which we heard an excerpt – speaks about the dangers of the 'last days,' identifying them with negative attitudes that belong to the world and can infect the Christian community: selfishness, vanity, pride, love of money, etc.”

“There is therefore a guarantee of freedom promised by God to the Church, it is freedom from the material bonds that seek to prevent or coerce mission, both through spiritual and moral evils, which may affect its authenticity and credibility.”

“The theme of the freedom of the Church, guaranteed by Christ to Peter, also has a specific relevance to the rite of the imposition of the pallium,” the Holy Father explained, “which we renew today for thirty-eight metropolitan archbishops, to whom I address my most cordial greeting, extending with it affection to all who have wanted to accompany them on this pilgrimage.”

[Natural Law]

Great article! The notion that victims were abused by the institution of the Church is maddening to all who remain in communion with the Church. Let's not forget that in every abuse case there are three victims; the child, the Church, and God. Sin is an individual choice, not an institutional policy. Whether in the deception and manipulation to put oneself in a position to victimize, to facilitate or enable those who victimize, or in the failure to intervene all three have been sinned against.

[livius]

Good article! Danneels was most definitely protected because he was a liberal (well, make that radical leftist, in Church terms) who had the same goals as the left in Belgium: the destruction and withering away of the Catholic Church. He was accomplishing his part of the bargain quite nicely, and the Church in Belgium is almost fatally weakened and diminished.

[Salvation]

**Good article! Danneels was most definitely protected because he was a liberal**

Just as the article laments the non-persual of Roger Cardinal Mahony of LA because of his liberal policies and fear of the press that they would lose the in-roads with him.

Sad.

Good articles, though. Thanks Dr. Brian!

[Persevero]

““I can assure you that the cardinal had envisioned his retirement very differently.””

I can assure him that many children envisioned their childhoods differently.

[Persevero]

I hate to see God listed as a “victim.” This sin does indeed offend God. I don’t think He is victimized, though.

[johngrace]

"The text includes a drawing of a naked infant girl, captioned to show her saying that she enjoyed having sex acts being performed on her and watching her parents have sex. Politician and author Alexandra Colen quoted a letter she had sent to Danneels in 1997 protesting the text that she said, “breeds pedophiles.” She said that when she went public in her fight against the text, she was joined by hundreds of parents who revealed more explicit sex practices being taught to children in Catholic schools around the country."

In The USA no way a written item would get away with being passed around to Kids. Something tells me the whole society of that nation is out of order. How could they get the away with this for so long. And the Church can't crack down on this behavior. Doesn't smell right. Whatever they maintain as a Church is all red flags.

[Natural Law]

"I hate to see God listed as a “victim.”"

Its a difficult theological construct to squeeze into a few words and maybe the English word choice was not optimized, but in any event God was sinned against.

[johngrace]

You know I have to interject this. God will not be mocked. I am a W. C. Fields fan. Its very weird that this Guy’s name is Godfreid Daneels. This is what W.C. would use as a curse word in his movies to get past the censors. Instead of G-d Damn. Just weird.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Gunning for Godfried? Belgian abuse probe asks what Danneels knew

Jun 29, 2010 12:37 EDT

belgium | cardinal | catholic | da vinci code | justice | sexual abuse | tomb

Are the Belgian judicial authorities gunning for Godfried? It looks like  Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the popular grandfatherly Catholic prelate who stepped down in January as archbishop of Brussels-Mechelen after three decades, is the main target of the incredible “tomb raider” sweeps that shocked the Church last Thursday. The police who swooped down on the diocesan headquarters in Mechelen, Danneels’s own apartment nearby and the offices of the Church commission on abuse in Leuven did not suspect the cardinal of abuse himself. But it seems the investigating magistrate behind the raid is convinced that Danneels hushed up cases during his long reign.

The media seem to be too — just take a look at last Saturday’s front page of the Brussels daily De Standaard at the right.

There may be something there. Let’s see what the investigators come up with.

Does the magistrate actually think Danneels also crept down to the crypt at St. Rumbold’s Cathedral in Mechelen one night and stashed incriminating files in the tombs of his predecessors?  Now we’re in Da Vinci Code territory. This would be laughable if it weren’t a sign of the  Marc Dutroux cloud that hangs over any case like this in Belgium. The Belgian police suspected Dutroux of kidnapping girls in the 1990s and actually inspected his house and missed the dungeon for the girls in the basement. There were huge protests against police incompetence when this came out. Dutroux was arrested and convicted of the murder of four girls. So the police are going to be extra tough and thorough to make sure they don’t bungle it again.

The change in tone about Danneels is striking and dates to the April resignation of Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe after admitting he had abused his own nephew. Danneels said at the time that he first learned of Vangheluwe’s transgressions only days before they became public, a fact that has been challenged by a Brussels priest, Rik Devillé. In the eight weeks since that shock, 475 people contacted the Church commission on sexual abuse to report their cases. Only 30 cases had been registered with the commission in the previous 10 years and none or almost none with the police. This is a sea change.

That so much information was flowing into the Church commission and so little of it getting out to the judicial authorities seems to have been the trigger for the investigating magistrate following abuse cases to take action. Justice Minister Stefaan De Clerck accused the commission of dragging its feet.

(Photo: Police outside the archbishop’s office in Mechelen on 24 June 2010/Eric Vidal)

The commission head, Peter Adriaenssens, said it had planned to draw up an initial report on its cases in October. One of the things he had on his agenda was a meeting with Danneels on July 5 to discuss his role. According to Adriaenssens, the cardinal’s name came up in about 50 dossiers, not as an abuser, but as someone who knew what was happening.

We’ll never know what that report would have said because that panel disbanded on Monday because all its working material — its files and computer — were now in police hands.  It’s also hard to say whether Danneels would have gotten an easier ride with the commission than he will with the judicial authorities, who seem bound to question him at some point in the near future. He can’t be forced to resign in disgrace, because he’s already stepped down from his archbishop’s post and cardinal is a title rather than a job. But his name could be dragged through a lot of mud — rightly or wrongly — before this saga is over.

[0beron]

Even the weirdo victim’s advocacy groups and some of the liberal politicians are objecting to this.

So much for due process.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Church Will be Pilloried: Belgium

Editor's Comment: Considering the growing strangeness of the atmosphere, the rebelliousness of the Austrian Clergy, there are some other dark clouds. Many are crying for blood and are willing to strike down laws to get at the institution they are increasingly mischaracterizing as evil.

Freemasons -- against the Church?

The battle surrounding the police raids against the Church in Belgium is more heated -- Christian Democrats: The searches could be a masonic plot. The current investigating judge Wim De Troy is close with the leading freethinkers.

Brussels [Kath.net/KNA] In Belgium the director of the independent commission for the investigation of the abuse accusations by church employees, Peter Adriaenssens, was interviewed for five hours long by the judiciary. The child psychiatrist is a witness for the work of the commission and the dossiers under examination, reported the Belgian media on Tuesday. Further discussions will follow this week. The commission had decided to offer their resignations against the progress of the authorities. In the confiscation of the dossiers of abuse victims the members saw a breach of trust.

In the mean time, the battle over the reasonableness of the progress of judiciary on its major raid against Church property was very sharp on Tuesday. Abuse victims held the searches and seizures irresponsible. Liberal and Socialist politicians secured themselves against critics from the Vatican.

In broadcaster "Radio 1" the sociologist Jan Hertogen (63) who was abused as a young man maintains that the authorities have compromised data privacy and laws regarding personal privacy. He has brought his case to the knowledge of the commission, but did not want in any way the engagement of the judiciary. He made his complaints against the Adriaenssens-Commission, because they had not exactly protected his documents. He hopes to persuade the commission, in their own part, to proceed against the judiciary authorities.

The Flemmish Minister Jo Vanderuzen warned of a loss of trust by the victims. They had the choice, to turn to the judiciary or not. This decision must be condemned. Church authorities are exploring at the moment legal steps against the police action.

The liberal politician Denis Ducarme and the scholastically aligned Bruno Tuybens called the Foreign Minister Steven Vanackere, to demand [verlangen] respect from the Vatican for the political and legal institutions of the land. They reacted with that to the sharp criticism from the Vatican to the actions of the authorities. Vanackere dismissed the notion that he had invited the Nuncio, Archbishop Giacinto Berloco, personally to an "oopen and constructive conversation".

The attorney of Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Fernand Keuleneer, expressed doubt on the legality of the raid. It is not admissible to indiscriminately confiscate dossiers and then initially to ascertain after if they contain any incriminating documents, he said to "The Antwerp Gazette". The house searches have awakened the impression, that the Church will be pilloried.

Editor's Note: If this had been in the United States happening to just about any other organization, there would be an outcrry about the absolute absence of due process. Could this be a way for Cardinal Daneels to walk away without taking responsibillity for destroying the Church of Belgium through years of neglect and cooperation with evil? Of course, it isn't an accident that Belgium is about
to divide itself in parts.

Read the original, here.

Posted by Tancred at 9:52 PM

[Natural Law]

"I can assure him that many children envisioned their childhoods differently."

I can ssure you that there are sinners in every human organization regardless of the purity of its ideology or intent. That includes your Calvinist institutions as well.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

I find it hard to mount a protest against the actions of the civil authorities in the face of the evil in the Belgian church. The following is a brutal thing to read, but remember it was posted by a faithful conservative Catholic mother who tried to correct real evil there:

The Fall of the Belgian Church

From the desk of Alexandra Colen on Thu, 2010-06-24 23:26

In Belgium, today, police searched the residence of the Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and the crypt of the Archbishop’s cathedral in Mechelen. They were looking for evidence of cover-ups in the ongoing investigation into widespread pedophilia practices within the Belgian church in the decades during which Cardinal Godfried Danneels was Archbishop. Danneels retired in January of this year.

Police also confiscated 450 files containing reports of pedophile offences by members of the clergy, that had been submitted to an investigation committee which was established within the church to deal with pedophilia cases.

Since the revelation in April that Cardinal Danneels’s close friend and collaborator, Mgr Roger Vangheluwe, the Bishop of Bruges, had been a practicing pedophile throughout, and even before, his career as a bishop, victims have gained confidence that they will be taken seriously, and complaints have been pouring in, both to the courts and to the extra-judicial investigation committee of the archdiocese. The new archbishop Mgr. André-Joseph Léonard, has urged victims to take their case to the courts.

His predecessor, the liberal Cardinal Danneels, who was very popular with the press in Belgium and abroad, was Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and Primate of Belgium from 1979 until 2010. The sympathy for pedophile attitudes and arguments among the Belgian bishops during this period was no secret, especially since 1997 when the fierce controversy about the catechism textbook Roeach made the headlines. The editors of Roeach were Prof. Jef Bulckens of the Catholic University of Leuven and Prof. Frans Lefevre of the Seminary of Bruges. The textbook contained a drawing which showed a naked baby girl saying: “Stroking my pussy makes me feel groovy,” “I like to take my knickers off with friends,” “I want to be in the room when mum and dad have sex.” The drawing also shows a naked little boy and girl that are “playing doctor” and the little boy says: “Look, my willy is big.”

 

The drawing also showed three pairs of parents. Those with the “correct” attitude reply: “Yes, feeling and stroking those little places is good fun.” This “catechism textbook” was used in the catechism lessons in the catholic schools, until one day I discovered it among the schoolbooks of my eldest daughter, then 13 years old. On 3 September 1997 I wrote a letter to Cardinal Danneels, saying:

“When I see this drawing and its message, I get the distinct impression that this catechism textbook is designed intentionally to make 13 and 14 year olds believe that toddlers enjoy genital stimulation. In this way one breeds pedophiles that sincerely believe that children actually think that what they are doing to them is ‘groovy’, while the opposite is the case.”

I told Cardinal Danneels that, although I was a member of Parliament for the Flemish-secessionist party Vlaams Blok, I was addressing him as a Catholic parent “who wishes to remain faithful to the papal authority and also wishes to educate her children this way.” I insisted that he forbid the use of this book in the catechism lessons: “This is why I insist – yes, the days of meekly asking are over – that you forbid the use of this ‘catechism book’ in our children’s classrooms.”

Today this case, that dates from 12 years ago, assumes a new and ominous significance. Especially now that I know that Mgr Roger Vangheluwe, the pedophile child molesting Bishop of Bruges, was the supervising bishop of both institutions – the Catholic University of Leuven and the Seminary of Bruges – whence came the editors in chief of this perverted “catechism” textbook.

Monsignor Vangheluwe not only entertained pedophile ideas, but also practiced them on his 11-year old nephew. Hundreds of children who were not raped physically were molested spiritually during the catechism lessons.

After I started my campaign against the Roeach textbook, many parents contacted me to voice their concerns. Stories of other practices in the Catholic education system poured in. There were schools where children were taught to put condoms over artificial penises and where they had to watch videos showing techniques of masturbation and copulation.

Because Cardinal Danneels refused to respond to requests to put an end to these practices, I and hundreds of concerned parents gathered in front of his palace on 15 October 1997. We carried placards with the text “Respect for parents and children,” and we said the rosary. Cardinal Danneels refused to receive a delegation of the demonstrators. “I shall not be pressured,” he said in the libertine magazine Humo on 21 October 1997. The Archbishop’s door remained closed when we demonstrated again on 10 December 1997.

When we demonstrated at the palace of the Bishop of Antwerp on 19 November 1997, Mgr Paul Van den Berghe received a delegation of mothers that included a local councilor from the Christian-Democrat party and myself. Mgr Van den Berghe, who was the Episcopal supervisor for education, listened to the mothers, wept and promised to investigate the practices in the sex education and catechism lessons. He also announced this intention in a declaration to the press.

He must have been reprimanded by his colleagues, because on 24 November, after a meeting of the Bishops’ Conference, in a press release to the press agency Belga, the Bishop of Antwerp announced that, in spite of his promise, there would be no investigation. Today we know that one of the colleagues present at the Conference was the child molester Vangheluwe, which makes that incident, too, very unsavory indeed.

On 18 February 1998 we were at Cardinal Danneels’s door again, myself and a group of parents. Again the door remained closed. So on 18 March 1998 a group of two hundred parents went to the Papal Nuncio, the ambassador of the Vatican, in Brussels. But the Nuncio, who was a friend of Danneels, also refused to meet us. He had, however, alerted the police, who had several water cannons at the ready just around the corner.

Meanwhile Danneels’s friends in the press started a campaign against me. “Colen continues to pester the bishops,” was the headline in Gazet van Antwerpen. One evening Toon Osaer, Danneels’s spokesman at the time, phoned me to tell me that as a Catholic I had to “be obedient” to the bishops. In Humo Danneels insinuated that I was “conducting my election campaign.”

On 5 January 1998 the daily newspaper Het Volk interviewed Patrick Vanhaelemeesch, a catechism teacher in the diocese of Bruges and one of the co-authors of Roeach. He gave some details about the illustration concerning masturbating toddlers in the catechism book. He said that the illustration was intended to convey the message that “toddlers experience sexual lust.” Vanhaelemeesch revealed that the committee of bishops had mentioned this illustration in an evaluation report of the catechism book. The report stated: “The presentation of the sexual-pedagogical attitudes is rendered ridiculous in the eyes of the pupils by the text balloons.” According to Vanhaelemeesch this criticism “indicates that the bishops had no objections at all to the message conveyed [i.e. toddlers experience sexual lust], but feared that the pupils would not take it seriously.”

When I had exhausted all possibilities and it was clear that the Belgian church did not want to hear the parents, I decided to sever all ties with the Catholic education system. I took my five children out of school and set up a homeschool together with other parents, so our children would be educated in a Catholic environment.

I sent a letter to all the cardinals in the world to inform them about the contents of the Roeach textbook. “Please be assured that this Dicastery will give your report all due consideration, answered Mgr. Clemens, Cardinal Ratzinger’s personal secretary, for the Congregation of the Faith in Rome; Cardinal Gagnon from Rome appreciated “the just battle which you are conducting”; “The matter which you raised is very important,” wrote Cardinal Arinze from Rome.

I received letters of support from cardinals from all parts of the globe. “I share your concern. It is important that you do not leave the matter uncontested,” wrote Cardinal Meisner of Cologne; “You have good reasons to be concerned,” wrote Cardinal Wamala of Uganda; “I feel strongly enough to write to Cardinal Danneels in the hope that he may enlighten me,” wrote Cardinal Vidal of the Philippines; “If I have the opportunity to discuss with Cardinal Danneels the matter you have drawn to my attention, I will do so,” wrote Cardinal Williams of New Zealand; “I shall try to do something in order to help you,” wrote Cardinal Lopez Rodriguez of Santo Domingo; “I am aware that your concerns have been brought to the attention of Cardinal Laghi, Prefect for the Congregation for Catholic Education,” wrote Cardinal O’Connor of New York.

On 27 February 2010 the daily newspaper De Standaard wrote that these letters “enhanced Rome’s perception of the weak church leadership in Belgium.” Hence, the liberal Danneels was replaced by Mgr Léonard. Rome hopes that he will be able to restore the church in Belgium. I share this hope. However, it is a pity that it has taken so long. The damage that has been done is greater than anyone could have imagined.

 

Dr. Alexandra Colen MP is a member of the Belgian House of Representatives.

[Persevero]

“I can ssure you that there are sinners in every human organization regardless of the purity of its ideology or intent. That includes your Calvinist institutions as well.”

I one hundred percent agree and don’t know why you assume I don’t.

I don’t condone this kind of behavior anywhere, whether in the home, the RC church, or the Rotary Club.

My statement about the children having a different vision of their childhood would not even imply otherwise.