Police questioned the former head of Belgium's Catholic Church, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, for over 10 hours Tuesday as part of a probe into allegations of priestly child abuse.Danneels has been accused by a retired priest of shielding predator priests when he headed the country's Catholic Church from 1979 to 2009 but he has denied any cover-up. Late last month, police raided the Church's headquarters, seized computer files from Danneels's home and even searched a cathedral crypt in an operation that angered the Vatican.
The legality of last month's raid has been questioned by lawyers for Danneels as well as the archbishop of Brussels-Mechelen, whose palace was also raided. They argue that it compromises the inviolability of the Vatican.
The Roman Catholic Church in Belgium has endured some of the worst of the worldwide paedophilia scandal to beset the Vatican. In April its longest-serving bishop, 73-year-old Roger Vangheluwe, resigned from his Bruges post after admitting sexually abusing a boy for years. According to retired priest Dirk Deville, hundreds of cases of sexual abuse had been signalled to Danneels going back to the 1990s.
In a bid to restore confidence within an increasingly sceptical flock, Belgium's bishops came together in May to publicly beg forgiveness from victims both for the actions of paedophile priests and for the Church's "silence."
Sources include:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5giMWS8lr74gsiIxZXNJBBNHzVDxw
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/07/07/belgium.church.sex.abuse/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfried_Danneels
http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bdanneels.html
No comments:
Post a Comment