From the Telegraph:
Roger Vangheluwe, 74, the former bishop of Bruges, said the abuse he committed was only "superficial".
"I don't have the impression at all that I am a paedophile. It was really just a small relationship. I did not have the feeling that my nephew was against it, quite the contrary," he said.
....
Vangheluwe admitted abusing one of his nephews over a 13-year period, until the boy was 18, and a second nephew for a period of 12 months. (Huff Post says 2 years below.)
More from The Huffington Post:
A former bishop's televised admission that he sexually abused two of his nephews caused an uproar in Belgium on Friday, with the prime minister, senior clergy and a prosecutor expressing shock at the way the ex-prelate made light of his offenses.
In an interview that aired Thursday Roger Vangheluwe, the former bishop of Bruges, spoke of his sexual abuse as "a little game," that involved fondling, but no "rough sex."
"I was never naked" and the abuse was never about "real sexuality," said Vangheluwe, 74.
....
Bruges Prosecutor Jean-Marie Berkvens said Friday the abuse of the second nephew lasted for two years. The victim was younger than 8 at the time.
....
The interview took place in a wooded Catholic retreat in Ferte-Imbault in central France, where Vangheluwe has been sent by the Vatican.
Throughout the interview, he sat relaxed, sometimes smiling and at times shrugging his shoulders as if to signal that the events he spoke of were not very serious.
Oh well. The abuse was only "superficial", only "a little game", with no "rough sex", and "never about real sexuality". And the one nephew did not object. Move along. Nothing to see here.
One of the tragedies of this story is that Vangheluwe is probably not lying. Very likely, he saw what he was doing exactly as he describes it. And the nephews whom he abused? What do they say? How were they affected by the "superficial" abuse? Ah, we don't know, but, from the stories of others who were abused, we can surmise that they were harmed, probably seriously, by abuse from the adult relative whom they trusted.
So. Vanghelhuwe has been sent to a French monastery, while the Vatican decides what to do with him.
The abuse started when the nephews were 5 years old and 8 years old and continued for years. I thought I could not be surprised further with stories about child abuse and denial, but it seems I can. The old mind is boggled.
Thanks to Lapin and Ann V for the links.
I think you are right, Mimi. He is in such denial - he thinks it was no big deal - and nobody is asking the victims. (Not that I would want them to be paraded into the limelight.) So sad.
ReplyDeleteIf only this man could see the harm he caused these two boys. It may be never ending. This is criminal behavior and should be treated as such. A prison not a monastery is the appropriate place for him.
ReplyDeleteWhat sent a shudder through my body was thinking this man ¨thinks and speaks¨ like a child -- he´s so immature and underexposed to real life that he lives in a sorta sexual romper room, the kind where children ARE INNOCENT -- unfortunately it seems he never grew up emotionally.
ReplyDeleteUnsafe at any age.
Vile.
ReplyDeleteIsn't his picture in the catechism next to "objectively disordered"? Oh, no... they've got some loving faithful gay couple there. Maybe in the next edition?
ReplyDeletePenny, it's sickening, the abuse and the denial.
ReplyDeleteTwo Auntees, Vanghelhuwe is 74 years old. Very likely, he will never understand the harm he's done, nor does he seem to want to understand.
Leonardo, I don't know how the RC seminaries operated in Belgium, but the former bishop is my contemporary, and over here in the US, boys entered into training for the priesthood as young as 13 years of age. They did not experience a normal adolescence, and, all too often, their emotional development was delayed or arrested as a result.
KJ, yes.
Maybe in the next edition?
Tobias, perhaps. Hope springs eternal.
Mimi, a quote from one of my favorite RC thinkers, a very sharp nun:
ReplyDeleteThere are still some young religious, especially young men in religious communities and seminaries, who are being formed to a suspicion and fear of intimacy, to viewing all relationships in terms of power over or subservience to, to being always the “givers” of ministerial gifts incapable of even admitting need much less accepting help. The smooth plastic finish of such priests and religious is completely scratch-proof by the time they exit from formation. They seem to be composed of a material which gets neither hot nor cold, never gets dirty, can be endlessly battered without denting, but which is universally recognized as a cheap substitute for that rich natural substance that characterizes living beings.
(Sandra M Schneiders, IHM, writing in New Wineskins (NY:Paulist Press, 1986), 226)
About says it all. This is what happens when an institution structures itself along lines and by principles that are diametrically opposed to its purported values.
Tobias, Sr Sandra is very wise. I'm sorry to hear that the same sort of training was still happening in the 1980s and perhaps even today? I've experienced the hard plastic finish on a few priests, and it is chilling.
ReplyDeleteBack in my day, seminaries taught that women were occasions of sin.
This just makes my head hurt and my stomach retch.
ReplyDelete"While the Vatican decides what to do with him"? How about the Belgian civil authorities decide what to do with him? It's only a year or so, if you recall, that the Vatican and the local hierarchy raised Cain because the Belgians were actively investigating clerical pedophiles. Nothing changes, does it?
ReplyDeleteThis is what Bill Donohue thinks, with his full-page ads in the NY Times. "They weren't children and they weren't raped".
ReplyDeleteAs though that makes it okay.
Donohue and this Bishop are cut from the same cloth. He didn't get anyone pregnant. He diddled a little boy. Such prudes, we are, to be upset!
The thing is this attitude will go deep into, and high into, the Vatican.
Reading this dolt I think I need to go wash.
ReplyDeleteFWIW
jimB
I did not have the feeling that my nephew was against it
ReplyDeleteIt does not exactly sound as if he has made a point of asking his nephew how he felt about it, or asking himself how his nephew felt about it. He clearly just wants to feel it was all fine.
Elizabeth, me too.
ReplyDeleteLapin, the Belgian civil authorities may go after Vangheluwe.
I remember the Vatican's cries about the ill-treatment of Belgian bishops and clergy. The authorities took away their computers!
The thing is this attitude will go deep into, and high into, the Vatican.
IT, yes indeed. That the Vatican policy was to cover-up to protect the institution, rather than to put a stop to the abuse and make the abusers accountable, is the reason that the behavior was widespread and went on for so long.
Jim, we'll all need a bath or a shower tonight.
Cathy, it appears someone told, and that someone was probably not happy.
God, I need to take a bath now. }-X
ReplyDeleteVile!
Note that he's in a monastery in France, not Belgium.
ReplyDeletewv pormeme
JCF, yes.
ReplyDeleteLapin, of course. The former bishop was sent out of the country.
Sick, sad and evil. I am incapable of assigning which adjective. God will do that. Makes ME somewhat ill, however.
ReplyDeletewv=chump
This made me simply livid! This and of course the whole rush to beatification of the most recent pope.
ReplyDeleteI'm hard-pressed for words. A reread of the post made me shudder.
ReplyDeleteYes, it seems JPII is on the fast track to beatification.