In Belgium complaints of sexual abuse continue to pile up as the Roman Catholic Church struggles to mend its severely tainted reputation.An investigative committee probing allegations of priestly pedophilia says it has received 270 separate letters in this regard since April 23rd.
The commission's president Peter Adriaenssens revealed on Tuesday that 90 percent of the reports involve boys.
95 percent of the reports come from the northern Belgian region of Flanders, the diocese where pedophile Bishop Roger Vangheluwe served.
Vangheluwe, after his April 23 resignation, admitted sexually abusing a boy when in office in the Flemish city of Bruges.
Following the confession, the Bruges diocese was attacked by a stone hurler, and received many angry emails.
The police have now increased their patrols in the area.
The deluge of complaints comes after the Belgian Church called on all abuse victims to file formal complaints.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, Pope Benedict XVI finally admitted that the Catholic Church's fall from grace comes from the "sins within the church" and not from campaigns by outsiders.
This is seen as a major shift from Vatican's initial reaction towards the abuse scandals, which blamed the media and outsiders for victimizing the church.
The Pope has now promised that the criminal priests will be brought to justice.
However, despite the recent confessions, the Vatican hierarchy and the pontiff himself remain under fire for helping child-molesting priests, by creating a "wall of silence" around such issues.
The recent waves of child abuse allegations flooding the Church across the Americas and Europe are seen as the most serious crisis to hit the Catholic Church in its entire history.
Many analysts maintain that the Vatican now faces a crisis which is far more serious than the child sex abuse scandal; it is facing a crisis of credibility.
SIC: PTV