Police Raid Catholic Church Headquarters in Belgium
June 26th, 2010Via: Telegraph:
Belgian police have raided the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church and the home of the recently retired Cardinal of Belgium as part of an investigation into the sexual abuse of children by clergy.
On Thursday morning, 30 police officers swooped on the palace of the archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, sealing off buildings and removing documents.
The latest blow to the scandal-hit Roman Catholic Church disrupted a meeting of bishops taking place in the presence of the Vatican’s ambassador to Belgium, in Mechelen, just north of Brussels.
A second raid took place at the nearby home of Cardinal Godfried Danneels, 77, where police officers seized a personal computer belonging to the former head of Belgium’s Catholic Church.
A third raid took place in the city of Leuven, where police officers searched the office of the Adriaenssens committee, an independent body set up by the Church to collect and investigate abuse allegations. Over 450 files detailing abuse allegations were confiscated.
Jean-Marc Meilleur, a spokesman for the Brussels crown prosecutor’s office, said that the raids were “related to the sexual abuse of children within the Church”.
“In a recent dossier the prosecutor was informed of charges denouncing the abuse of minors by a certain number of Church people,” he said.
Hans Geybels, a spokesman for Cardinal Danneels, said that police did not interrogate him during the raid.
“They did take away his computer,” he said. “The cardinal believes justice must run its normal course. He has nothing against that.”
The investigation is thought to centre on April’s resignation of Roger Vangheluwe, Bishop of Bruges. Bishop Vangheluwe stood down after admitting to having sexually abused a young boy during the time when Cardinal Danneels was the head of the Belgian Church.
Belgium’s Church has been hit hard by the sex abuse scandal that has engulfed the wider European Roman Catholic clergy with reports that bishops covered up abuse of in seminars, schools and other church-run institutions.
The Belgian police have a rep for letting high-level perps (Belgian nobility) off the hook, and so this raid may be simply a ruse to gather up incriminating evidence before it might get into the hands of human rights activists or other white hats. ISGP has this on Cardinal Danneels:
“In 2004, Cardinal Danneels was featured in The Sprout as being involved and blackmailed over a tape on which the torture and murder of Julie and Melissa could be seen. The issue of the Sprout was taken out of the stores within hours and interestingly, the media did not start a debate over the pictures of the autopsy on Julie and Melissa, which, according to the Sprout, showed that they had been tortured before their death, and did not just die from starvation as claimed …”
http://www.isgp.eu/dutroux/Belgian_X_dossiers_the_accused.htm
Heard a story of grave robbing Friday on NPR.
Have not been able to look since (glad your connection is up Kevin).
I think its a sign of the times. People at the end of their rope. Tired of waiting for the “authorities” to bring “justice” to the harm caused.
There’s no way to fix all the kiddies, now adults that have been subjects of the “great dictum” and resulting self created monster the Catholic religion created when it said to its men, “you will be celibate.”
Wow, I guess that was another great credo from “the authorities above” that failed.
Methinks from what I read of history, this celibacy dictum has been a disaster since about day one.
The latest and greatest:
http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1103ap_eu_vatican_belgium.html?source=mypi
I dunno. I think this article shows the tip of the iceburg (can’t help itself anger that’s finally coming to the break point) about all the flucking, sucking, sodoming and gomoraging that’s going been going on for centuries under that Holier than Thou Church.
Went to a Memorial Mass today in a Catholic Church. Awesome. I went to Communion. I thought this was a beautiful ceremony. Too bad about all the baggage that keeps this place from being a really good place.
Time to clean house.