I thought I was going to have some support.

“Why do you feel sorry for him and not me? You always try to defend him. I thought I was going to have some support.”

With these telling words it is clear that yet another victim of Roman Catholic, clerical sex abuse was again made to feel victimised. To the victim, at least, it seemed that the perpetrator of the abuse was being defended and he, the victim, was given one course of action - forgiveness.

The case, which has caused huge turmoil in the Catholic church in Belgium, seems to be summarised pretty comprehensively in the New York Times of Sept 1, 2010 under the headline, "Cardinal, Who Mediated in Belgian Abuse Case, Says He Was Misled."

Timeline summary of events.

As a priest Roger Vangheluwe sexually abused his nephew, his own brother's son, for 13 years from the time the boy was 5 years of age.

Even after Vangheluwe was made Bishop of Bruges in 1984 the sexual assults continued until the victim was 18 years old.

Vangheluwe sent his nephew gifts of money, unsolicited, on his birthday, Easter, New Year and (wait for it...) Valentine's Day.

For the next 24 years the nephew kept his childhood abuse a secret.

The nephew told some members of the family who together asked for a meeting with Vangheluwe.

Vangheluwe arranged a meeting with himself and half a dozen members of the family, including the nephew and his father, Vangheluwe's brother. There would be a "mediator". The family thought the mediator would be the new Bishop of Bruges, Archbishop Léonard. Instead Vangheluwe brought in his old friend, Cardinal Danneels, recently retired head of the Church in Belgium.

The nephew secretly recorded the meeting which took place April 8, 2010.

At the meeting Danneels urged the nephew to stay quiet, at least until Vangheluwe could retire. "It might be better to wait for a date in the next year, when he is due to resign. I don't know if there will be much to gain from making a lot of noise about this, neither for you nor for him."

In another meeting later the same month Vangheluwe offered his nephew an apology which was rejected. “This is unsolvable,” the victim said. “You’ve torn our family completely apart.”

Vangheluwe resigned on April 23, 2010, after admitting to sexually abusing "a young man years ago" and has gone to a Trappist monastery.

In August the nephew released the tapes.

Observations and Comments

This is really shocking by any standards. The victim was 5 years old when the abuse started! Five! ...and the perpetrator accepted a nomination to the epicopate while this was going on and continued thus for some years into his time as bishop!

Cardinal Danneels had been chairman of the Belgian Episcopal Conference from 1979 to January 2010. He must have known that this needed a formal investigation by the current bishop. He should not have touched this with a barge pole. Instead we find him trying to influence the course of events and prevent or delay due process laid down by Canon Law. According to an earlier New York Times article on August 29, “The bishop will resign next year, so actually it would be better for you to wait,” the cardinal told the victim. “I don’t think you’d do yourself or him a favor by shouting this from the rooftops.” (Belgian Church Leader Urged Victim to Be Silent.) The cardinal warned the victim against trying to blackmail the church and suggested that he accept a private apology from the bishop and not drag “his name through the mud.” I gather from this that an apology would mean the end of the matter.

One has to wonder if Daneels himself had something to hide. According to the same New York Times article, a retired priest, the Rev. Rik Devillé, said he tried to warn Cardinal Danneels about the bishop’s abuse of his nephew 14 years ago, but was berated by the cardinal for doing so.

They just don't get it, do they? When will they get it that it's not about "The Church" and its reputation or the protectionism of the Old Boys' Club? It has to be about the victims. An apology that is a cloak for a request to be let off the hook is no apology at all. Preaching forgiveness and pushing victims to forgive without demanding that perpetrators attempt to make restitution and take the consequences of their actions doesn't merely ring hollow - it rubs salt in the wound, invalidates the pain and trauma of the victim and exacerbates the sense of victimhood. It's the stuff of hypocrisy. Jesus had his harshest words for hypocrites.