Belgium’s prime minister on Friday blasted Pope Francis for the Catholic Church’s horrific legacy of clerical sex abuse and cover-ups in his country, demanding “concrete steps” to come clean with the past and put victims’ interests first.
Alexander De Croo’s blistering welcome speech at the start of Francis’s visit was one of the most pointed ever directed at the pope during a foreign trip, where diplomatic protocol usually keeps outrage out of public remarks.
But even King Philippe had strong words for Francis, demanding the church work “incessantly” to atone for its crimes and help victims heal.
The comments underscored just how raw the abuse scandal is in Belgium, where two decades of revelations of abuse and systematic cover-ups have devastated the hierarchy’s credibility and contributed to an overall decline in Catholicism and influence of the once-powerful church.
Francis applauded at the end of Mr De Croo’s speech and was expected to meet with victims in private later Friday.
“This is our shame and humiliation,” he said in a candid response.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told the pope abuse victims “have a right to truth”. (AP Photo: Andrew Medichini)
Speaking at Laeken Castle, the residence of Belgium’s royal family, Mr De Croo told Francis and an audience of royals, church officials, diplomats and politicians that “words alone do not suffice”.
“We also need concrete steps,” he said.
“Victims need to be heard. They need to be at the centre. They have a right to truth. Misdeeds need to be recognised.
“When something goes wrong we cannot accept cover-ups … to be able to look into the future, the church needs to come clean on its past.”
Church’s horrific record in Belgium
Revelations of Belgium’s horrific abuse scandal have dribbled out in bits over a quarter-century, punctuated by a bombshell in 2010 when the country’s longest-serving bishop, Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, was allowed to resign without punishment after admitting he had sexually abused his nephew for 13 years.
Francis only defrocked Bishop Vangheluwe earlier this year, in a move clearly designed to remove a lingering source of outrage among Belgians before his visit.
Two months after Bishop Vangheluwe resigned, Belgian police staged what were then unprecedented raids on Belgian church offices, the home of recently retired Archbishop Godfried Danneels and even the crypt of a prelate — a violation the Vatican decried at the time as “deplorable”.
‘No congregation’ escaped Belgian sex abuse scandal
Archbishop Danneels was then caught on tape trying to persuade Bishop Vangheluwe’s nephew to keep quiet until the bishop retired.
Finally, in September 2010, the church released a 200-page report that said 507 people had come forward with stories of being molested by priests, including when they were as young as two.
It identified at least 13 suicides by victims and attempts by six more.
Victims and advocates say those findings were just the tip of the iceberg, and the true scope of the scandal is far greater.
Police eventually returned the documentation that was seized in the 2010 raids to the church, scuttling hopes for criminal investigations.
Despite everything that was known and already in the public domain, the scandal reared its head in a shocking new way last year, when a four-episode Flemish documentary, Godvergeten (Godforsaken), aired on public broadcaster VRT.
For the first time, Belgian victims told their stories on camera one after another, showing Flemish viewers the scope of the scandal in their community, the depravity of the crimes and their systematic cover-up by the Catholic hierarchy.
Amid the public outrage that ensued, both a Flanders parliamentary committee and Belgium’s federal parliament opened official inquests last year.
A follow-up investigation announced this week will look into whether any external pressures led to the collapse of the criminal investigation.
Public dressing-down a break with protocol
Significantly, both King Philippe and Mr De Croo made their toughest remarks about abuse in Dutch — the language spoken in the once staunchly Catholic Flanders, where the abuse cases have gained the most notoriety — while the more neutral parts of their speeches were delivered in French and German.
Mr De Croo’s speech was also outside typical Vatican protocol, which normally would have seen only the king address the pope.
Pope Francis reacts as the church is admonished during the event. (Reuters: Yves Herman)
As occurred in Canada, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the pope alongside the country’s governor-general, De Croo’s office requested that he be able to speak, officials said.
The pope also referred to abuse in his remarks, insisting that the church was “addressing firmly and decisively” the problem by implementing prevention programs, listening to victims and accompanying them to heal.
But after the astonishing dressing-down by the prime minister and king, Francis went off-script to express the shame of the church for the scandal and voice his commitment to ending it.
“The church must be ashamed and ask for forgiveness and try to resolve this situation with Christian humility and put all the possibilities in places so that this doesn’t happen again,” Francis said.
“But even if it were only one [victim], it is enough to be ashamed.”
Victims have demanded the church do far more, including implementing robust reparations programs to compensate them for their trauma and pay for the lifelong therapy many need.
Pope Francis met with elderly people in financial difficulties at a home in Brussels. (Reuters: Ciro Fusco)
Some penned a letter demanding such a reparations program, which they planned to deliver to Francis in their private meeting.
The prime minister, king and pope also referred to a new church-related scandal rocking Belgium, over so-called “forced adoptions”, which echoed earlier revelations about Ireland’s so-called “mother and baby homes”.
After World War II and through to the 1980s, many single mothers were forced by the Belgian church to offer their newborns up for adoption.
Often the mothers barely saw their babies before nuns took them away, and the babies were then placed for adoption, with money changing hands.
For those adopted, it is close to impossible now to find their birth mothers, since the records have long ago disappeared.
Francis said he was “saddened” to learn of these practices, but said such criminality was “mixed in with what was unfortunately the prevailing view in all parts of society at this time”.
“Many believed in conscience that they were doing something good for both the child and the mother,” he said, referring to the social stigma of an unwed mother in a Catholic country.
He prayed that the church would “bring clarity” to the problem.
AP
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Publish date : 2024-09-27 08:03:00
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