A Roman Catholic
order of priests sacked its leader in the Netherlands and disciplined
another priest Monday after the two publicly defended pedophile sex, an
issue haunting the worldwide Church in recent years.
The scandal erupted over the
weekend when RTL radio reported the priest, named only as Rev. Van B,
had been a board member of a lobbying group advocating sex between
adults and children. He told RTL that few children suffered from such
relationships.
Asked about the case, Rev. Herman Spronck, leader of the Dutch Salesians, said he agreed pedophile sex could be accepted.
"Herman
Spronck is no longer the delegate from the Salesian delegation in the
Netherlands," his superior Rev. Jos Claes, leader of the Salesians in
Belgium and the Netherlands, told RTL.
"We fully distance ourselves from
the words we find in your interview with Herman Spronck."
Rev. Van B "can longer perform any pastoral duties as of today," he added.
The
Dutch Salesians used to run boarding schools where many of the 2,000
complaints of clerical sexual abuse of boys emerged when the scandal
broke there last year. It has admitted to paying hush money to some
victims.
WIDESPREAD ABUSE
An independent commission investigating abuse cases dating back to 1945 has found that the Netherlands ranks worst behind only Ireland in a scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in Europe and the United States.
The
abuse scandal has badly damaged the reputation of the Catholic Church.
Pope Benedict has apologised for the scandals and last week issued
tougher new guidelines for churches around the world to make fighting
clerical sex abuse a top priority.
While
many priests have been exposed as molesters, very few have defended sex
with minors. The radio said Van B. had twice been arrested for exposing
himself to children.
In his
interview with RTL, Van B said: "Society finds these kinds of
relationships damaging. I don't agree. Only in a few cases do the
children suffer from them."
The
radio, which said Spronck knew of Van B's role in the pedophile group
but did nothing about it, quoted him as saying he "would not reject in
principle (the idea of) sex with minors."
Spronck later denied he had
said that.
Claes said in a
statement the Salesians had set up an inquiry into Van B's membership in
the group. "Membership in such an association, and its views, are not
consistent with our Salesian identity and educational project," he said.
Wim
Deetman, head of the independent commission investigating the scandals,
has said most cases happened decades ago and could no longer be
prosecuted.
The commission had a list of about 1,000 suspected abusers
but only six had confessed their guilt.