PARIS – Belgium’s justice minister urged the Vatican yesterday to impose stiff punishment on a disgraced Catholic bishop who denies being a paedophile despite admitting to sexually abusing two of his 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 “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 that he had molested a second nephew.
He left Belgium last week under Vatican orders to seek “spiritual and psychological treatment” abroad. Belgian media say he is in a French monastery. The Vatican has said the decision to discipline him lay 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,” Mr 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.”
Vangheluwe is the only admitted sexual abuser among disgraced Catholic bishops and risks being defrocked if the Vatican imposes the punishment Catholic critics of the hierarchy say is needed.
Clearly exasperated at the church’s defensive response to the scandals, Mr De Clerck called on the Belgian Catholic hierarchy to compensate abuse victims as recommended by a parliamentary commission.
Brussels archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, who is head of the Belgian bishops conference, has caused controversy by saying the church had no obligation to compensate victims.
Vangheluwe told VT4 television he was sorry for molesting his nephews but did not consider himself a paedophile or see the acts as anything serious. “It had nothing to do with sexuality,” he said.
“I have often been involved with children and I never felt the slightest attraction. It was a certain intimacy that took place. 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.”
The nephew who Vangheluwe admitted abusing for 13 years went public last year. Vangheluwe said he had paid him about €25,000 on a number of occasions. As the abuse occurred years ago, he can no longer be prosecuted, a justice official said.
“Vangheluwe is a sick man who doesn’t realise what he’s spewing out. He doesn’t show the least bit of regret for the evil he has done,” the Brussels newspaper De Morgen wrote.The Gazet van Antwerpen asked, “For the love of God, how could someone like that become a bishop?” – (Reuters)