Sunday, April 17, 2011

No decision yet on disgraced Belgian bishop: Vatican

The Vatican said on Tuesday it had not yet decided whether to defrock a Belgian Catholic bishop who resigned in disgrace after admitting to sexually abusing his nephew.

The Vatican said former Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe had left Belgium and was in an undisclosed location getting "spiritual and psychological treatment".

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 last week the Vatican ambassador in Brussels announced that he had left the country.

The psychological treatment was ordered by the Vatican's doctrinal department "to get more elements for the diagnosis and prognosis" needed to make a final decision on his case, the Vatican said, adding that it would take into account "the suffering of the victims and the need for justice".

Vangheluwe will not be allowed to carry out any priestly duties in public for the time being.

He 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.

Bruges prosecutor Jean-Marie Berkvens has said that Vangheluwe's abuse cases were beyond the statute of limitations. But he left open the possibility of prosecuting him on other charges and said he would say more in late April.

The bishop's resignation sparked a wave of revelations of sexual abuse in the Belgian Catholic Church. A Church commission received 475 complaints within a few weeks and reported that 13 people had committed suicide in the past after their complaints to Church officials fell on deaf ears.

Vangheluwe's continued presence in Belgium fuelled debate in the local Church about the hierarchy's mismanagement of the abuse crisis. Cardinal Godfried Danneels was accused of protecting him and other abusers during his decades as primate of Belgium.

Brussels Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard has caused controversy by saying it was vengeful to prosecute retired predator priests and that the Church had no obligation to compensate abuse victims.