{"id":244,"date":"2010-08-31T13:59:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T13:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/08\/belgian-cardinal-catholic-clergy-sex-abuse-cover-up.html"},"modified":"2010-08-31T13:59:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-31T13:59:00","slug":"belgian-cardinal-catholic-clergy-sex-abuse-cover-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/08\/belgian-cardinal-catholic-clergy-sex-abuse-cover-up.html","title":{"rendered":"Belgian Cardinal: ‘Naive’ in Advising Abuse Victim to Stay Silent?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The investigation of Catholic Church clergy sex abuse has hit a new low\/high in Belgium, where secular authorities raided church headquarters earlier this summer<\/a>: the release of tapes<\/a> from an April 8 meeting in which retired Cardinal Godfried Danneels advised a victim, now a grown man, to keep quiet so that his childhood abuser and uncle, Bishop Robert Vangheluwe, could quietly step down next year.<\/p>\n

From the New York Times story<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

“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.” 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.” <\/p>\n

The victim responded, “He has dragged my whole life through the mud, from 5 until 18 years old,” and asked, “Why do you feel sorry for him and not for me?” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Disturbing stuff, though in Danneels’ defense, his spokesman says he was “unprepared<\/a>” and “naive<\/a>” going into the meeting, and his counsel was based on concern for the victim, now 42, and his family about the publicity that would arise from revealing the long-kept secret. <\/p>\n

Danneels had retired in January; Vangheluwe resigned in late April, several weeks after his nephew’s recorded conversation with the retired cardinal.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n

*Click here to <\/span>subscribe to Belief Beat <\/span><\/strong><\/a>and <\/span>click here to <\/span>follow Belief Beat on Twitter.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The investigation of Catholic Church clergy sex abuse has hit a new low\/high in Belgium, where secular authorities raided church headquarters earlier this summer: the release of tapes from an April 8 meeting in which retired Cardinal Godfried Danneels advised a victim, now a grown man, to keep quiet so that his childhood abuser and uncle, Bishop Robert…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBelgian Cardinal: 'Naive' in Advising Abuse Victim to Stay Silent? - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/08\/belgian-cardinal-catholic-clergy-sex-abuse-cover-up.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Belgian Cardinal: 'Naive' in Advising Abuse Victim to Stay Silent? - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The investigation of Catholic Church clergy sex abuse has hit a new low\/high in Belgium, where secular authorities raided church headquarters earlier this summer: the release of tapes from an April 8 meeting in which retired Cardinal Godfried Danneels advised a victim, now a grown man, to keep quiet so that his childhood abuser and uncle, Bishop Robert…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/08\/belgian-cardinal-catholic-clergy-sex-abuse-cover-up.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-31T13:59:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Belgian Cardinal: 'Naive' in Advising Abuse Victim to Stay Silent? - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/08\/belgian-cardinal-catholic-clergy-sex-abuse-cover-up.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Belgian Cardinal: 'Naive' in Advising Abuse Victim to Stay Silent? 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