Belgium’s prime minister has task Pope Francis on the Catholic Church’s horrific legacy of clerical sex abuse and cover-ups.
In a speech PM Alexander De Croo, demanded that the church to take “concrete steps” to come clean with the past and put victims’ interests ahead those of the institution in a blistering welcome at the start of Francis’ visit on Friday.
De Croo’s speech was one of the most pointed ever directed at the pope during a foreign trip, where the genteel dictate of diplomatic protocol usually keeps outrage out of the public remarks. But even King Philippe had strong words for Francis, demanding the church work “incessantly” to atone for the crimes and help victims heal.
Their tone underscored just how raw the abuse scandal still is in Belgium, where two decades of revelations of abuse and systematic cover-ups have devastated the hierarchy’s credibility and contributed to an overall decline in Catholicism and the influence of the once-powerful Catholic Church.
Francis applauded at the end of De Croo’s speech and was expected to meet with victims in private later Friday. “This is our shame and humiliation,” he said in an improvised response.
“Today, words alone do not suffice. We also need concrete steps,” De Croo told Francis and an audience of royals, church officials, diplomats and politicians at Laeken Castle, the residence of Belgium’s royal family.
“Victims need to be heard. They need to be at the centre. They have a right to truth. Misdeeds need to be recognised,” he said. “When something goes wrong we cannot accept cover-ups,” he said. “To be able to look into the future, the church needs to come clean on its past.”
Revelations of Belgium’s horrific abuse scandal have dribbled out in bits over a quarter century, punctuated by a bombshell in 2010, when the country’s longest-serving bishop, Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, was allowed to resign without punishment after admitting he had sexually abused his nephew for 13 years.
Francis only defrocked Vangheluwe earlier this year, in a move clearly designed to remove a lingering source of outrage among Belgians before his visit.
Two months after Vangheluwe resigned, Belgian police staged what were then unprecedented raids on Belgian church offices, the home of recently retired Archbishop Godfried Danneels, and even the crypt of a prelate — a violation the Vatican decried as “deplorable.”
The pope also referred to abuse in his remarks, insisting that the church was “addressing firmly and decisively” the problem by implementing prevention programs, listening to victims and accompanying them to heal.
But after the astonishing dressing down by the prime minister and king, Francis went off-script to express the shame of the church for the scandal and voice his commitment to ending it.
“The church must be ashamed and ask for forgiveness and try to resolve this situation with Christian humility and put all the possibilities in places so that this doesn’t happen again,” Francis said. “But even if it were only one (victim), it is enough to be ashamed.” AP
