A former bishop who has admitted abusing two of
his nephews in Belgium has disappeared from a French religious community
where the Vatican ordered him to seek "spiritual and psychological
treatment", said an AFP report in the West Australian.
Roger Vangheluwe resigned as Bishop of Bruges last year after
confessing to having sex with his underage nephew, but was not
prosecuted as the crimes had taken place several years previously before
the statute of limitations.
Last week, he again caused outrage when he gave a television
interview in which he also admitted to molesting a second nephew but
insisted he did not consider hiself a paedophile nor a threat to
children.
"I don't in the slightest have any sense I am a paedophile," he
reportedly said in the interview.
"I don't get the impression my nephew
was opposed, quite the contrary," he added, although he also admitted:
"I knew it wasn't good, I confessed it several times."
After the first scandal, the Vatican ordered him to seek treatment at a church community La Ferte-Imbault in France.
The interview drew outrage, a sharp denunciation from the Council of
Bishops and calls for him to be prosecuted.
But on Sunday it emerged
that he had gone.
"He left last night," the mother superior of the Brotherhood of
Jerusalem told AFP at the community.
Asked where he had gone, she said:
"I don't know. We are referring all questions to the papal nuncio's
office in Belgium."