Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, 73, stepped down over abuse scandal. In Bruges.
“Where’s that?”“It’s in Begium.”
Vangheluwe is the first Belgian bishop to resign amid a new wave of disclosures of clergy sexual abuse in Europe. On Friday, the bishop, who has had the title for 25 years, admitted to sexually abusing a boy in the past.
“When I was still just a priest, and for a certain period at the beginning of my episcopate, I sexually abused a minor from my immediate environment. The victim is still marked by what happened. Over the course of these decades I have repeatedly recognised my guilt towards him and his family, and I have asked forgiveness; but this did not pacify him, as it did not pacify me,” Vangheluwe said in his statement.
He is following Bishop Walter Mixa in Germany, Bishop James Moriarty in Ireland (the third Irish bishop to step down over the scandal), Bishop Georg Mueller in Norway, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer in Austria, and several American bishops who committed or covered up abuses in their parishes.
“Don’t know any Belgium jokes, and if I did I think I’d have the good sense not to… hang on. Is Belgium with all those child abuse murders lately? I do know a Belgium joke. What’s Belgium famous for? Chocolates and child abuse, and they only invented the chocolates to get to the kids.”
Abuse scandals and lawsuits have cost the Roman Catholic Church an estimated $3 billion in settlements in the United States only in the last 20 years, the AFP reported. What are the costs in Europe?
