Priest sex abuse linked to 13 suicides in Belgium; hundreds come forward

[mike r]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39093978/ns/world_news-europe/

Priest sex abuse linked to 13 suicides in Belgium
By RAF CASERT

BRUSSELS — Hundreds of sex abuse victims have come forward in Belgium with harrowing accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy that reportedly led to at least 13 suicides and affected children as young as two, an independent Belgian commission said Friday.

Professor Peter Adriaenssens, chairman of the commission, said the abuse in Belgium may have been even more rampant than the 200-page report suggests, because his panel's work was interrupted and all its files seized in a June 24 raid by Belgian judicial authorities who are conducting their own probe. Adriaenssens, a child psychiatrist who has worked with trauma victims for 23 years, said nothing had prepared him for the stories of abuse that blighted the lives of victims. He called the report's findings "a body blow" to the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium...

The report's findings are the latest embarrassment for Belgium's Catholic Church, which is still reeling after the April resignation of Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who admitted to having sexually abused a nephew for years when he was a priest and bishop.

Friday's report lists 507 witnesses who came forward with stories of molestation at the hands of clergy over the past decades. It says those abused included children who were two, four, five and six years old. Family members or friends said 13 victims committed suicide that "was related to sexual abuse by clergy," the report said. Six other witnesses said they had attempted suicide. "It is notable how often one issue comes back in the witness reports: the high number of suicides," the report said...

[T Wolf]

1. The RC church in Belgium is (in most ways) not like the institution here. And the population,

though overwhelmingly "Catholic", really do not like the pope or the church hierarchy.

The fact that their priests are doing the same shit that ones here (and obviously elsewhere) have done (and still are doing) just points out the utter lack of morality in that institution.

It's along the same lines as the Democratic Party supporting torture, war and corporatism - a betrayal of the rules and laws governing the situation and a major betrayal of the people who "belong" to the institution.

[Bluebear]

2. --

[gophates]

3. Good thing there was an enlightenment, so we could move past the ugliness.

Xianity is so much better than the other religions.