Danneels

Cardinal Danneels – The Real Victim?

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 In the movie Napoleon, Wellington has strictly forbidden his soldiers to loot on pain of death. He comes across a soldier with a chicken under his shirt. The soldier tries to come up with a convincing explanation of why there is a chicken under his shirt. Wellington turns to his aide and tells him to promote the soldier, saying, “I like someone who can defend an indefensible position.” 

Fernand Keuleneer, the attorney for Cardinal Danneels has a similar task. De Standard published the transcripts of the secretly-taped conversation between the victim of Bishop Vangheluwe and Danneels. In an article in the Belgian Catholic paper Tertio (which is available in a translation here on the America blog),  Keuleneer tries to explain and justify the Cardinal’s words.  

Keuleneer claims that Danneels was unprepared for the meeting and thought it was an attempt to achieve family recompilation. Dannels is a victim of an unjustified attack. But if everything that Danneels said is morally and legally justifiable, why is it character assassination to print Danneels’ own words?  

As Austen Ivereigh points out, Danneels was deaf to the victim’s plea for some form of justice and told the victim that it would be almost impossible to achieve and that demanding it was a form of blackmail. 

Vangheluwe was not simply an abuser and a sinner, he was an evil man. In the previous post I reported how he had ordained a convicted abuser as a deacon, an abuser who had driven his victim to suicide, despite the pleas of the victim’s mother not to ordain the abuser (who then went to work in a Catholic school). Vangheluwe insisted that the victim’s family must forgive the abuser, so that the abuser would continue having contact with children. This misuse of forgiveness, which Danneels is also guilty of, is very close to the sin against the Holy Ghost.

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Sexual Abuse and Suicide

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Because the reporting on the Vangheluwe – Danneels case is in Dutch, much of the information is difficult to access. 

One important piece of background has recently surfaced. Tom Heneghan of Reuters wrote to Austen Ivereigh at America:

 What is not said in the transcripts but was reported in the other paper running the transcripts (Het Nieuwsblad) is that the victim was moved to speak out after learning that Vangheluwe had consecrated a deacon who was a child abuser. One of his victims later committed suicide. Vangheluwe’s victim felt this might have been avoided if he had spoken out about Vangheluwe years ago. The victim cannot just accept an apology from his uncle, he feels a duty to do more, but he does not come across as vengeful. At one point early on, he even says to Danneels that if he (D) suggests a coverup is the only way, he might have to learn to live with that. But then he pulls himself together again and says Vangheluwe simply cannot stay in office if the Church is to stand for anything at all. 

Ivereigh is backing away from his attempt to soften Danneels action or rather refusal to act. Danneels was caught on tape acting like bishops usually act and will continue to act. And Danneels will suffer no consequences, nor will any future bishop who covers up sexual abuse suffer any consequences, and they know it. Until we get a true reforming pope like Pius V, the hierarchy will continue to tolerate abuse whenever they can get away with it – which is almost always. 

What Vangheluwe did to his nephew could have gotten him executed in very painful fashion in the Middle Ages – but Danneels doesn’t even want Vangheluwe to suffer any embarrassment. Such are the tender hearts of our hierarchs – for each other, not for us.

PS It appears from this article that in 1995 Vangheluwe ordained a certain Marc V as a deacon, even though Vangheluwe knew that Marc V. was a convicted child abuser (suspended sentence) and that one of Marc V.’s victims had committed suicide in 1991. The victim’s mother pleaded in vain to Vangheluwe not to ordain the man who had driven her son to suicide. Vangheluwe insisted the victim’s family must forgive Marc V.The nephew felt that his silence enabled this situation: if he had spoken out, Vangheluwe would not be a bishop and therefore he would not have been able to ordain Marc V. as a deacon.  

The attitude of the hierarchy toward child abuse can be seen in this ordination. They were willing to ordain a man who had driven his abuse victim to suicide. Perhaps, in fact, the fact that Marc V  had abused children before his ordination was a plus: another abuser in the clergy who would “understand” and not “judgmental” toward what Vangheluwe had done to his nephew.

Marc V. remained a deacon and worked in a Catholic school until Vangheluwe’s downfall caused his background to become public. Then he was “temporarily” removed.

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A Pox on Both Their Houses

in Belgium, Catholic Church, clergy sex abuse scandal, clericalism, guilt, Moral Theology, repentance, Responsibility 4 Comments Tags: , , , , ,

Tom Roberts at the National Catholic Reporter reflects on the failure of the hierarchy:

Danneels was generally seen as one of the last of the Vatican II generation who knew that council intimately and supported its reforms. He would be, for lack of a better term, a liberal by many of today’s ecclesiastical measures. But it doesn’t matter. So was Archbishop Rembert Weakland, and his handling of some abuse cases was notoriously callous, and in his own attempt to hide a homosexual liaison he saw fit to lift nearly a half million dollars from archdiocesan coffers without telling anyone.

By contrast, Cardinal Anthony Bevelacqua of Philadelphia was a noted conservative, one of those who could be described as leading the reversal on Vatican II reforms. The Philadelphia Grand Jury report on his role in hiding sexual predators and using the law to avoid accountability is deeply disturbing reading. So are the documents in which Cardinals Bernard Law and Edward Egan are depicted overseeing the handling of abuse cases in their respective dioceses. Both are staunch conservatives and would be considered by many as protectors of a traditionalist approach to ecclesiology and church teaching.

Wherever members of the hierarchy are on the political, theological or ecclesiological spectrums, they meet first as brothers in a unique culture of celibate men who have sworn oaths of allegiance to the papacy and who have repeatedly acted to protect the institution while shunning the plight of thousands of child victims of abusive priests.

“I came to think that the problem was in some way cultural,” wrote Australian Bishop Mark Coleridge of the sex abuse crisis. “But that prompted the further question of how; what was it that allowed this canker to grow in the body of the Catholic church, not just here and there but more broadly?”

Coleridge does not provide a magic answer in that pastoral letter prepared last spring for Pentecost. However, he raises a number of issues – inadequat seminary training, the church’s “culture of discretion,” seminary training that creates “a kind of institutional immaturity, “a certain church triumphalism,” and the church’s tendence to see things in the light of sin and forgiveness rather than crime and punishment – that deserve far wider discussion and examination.

He includes in that list “clericalism understood as a hierarchy of power, not service.” It is one of many influences that caused so many in the hierarchy to confront the abuse crisis in ways they now say they regret. Perhaps it ought to be at the top of the list. Danneels is merely the latest sorry example, though a current one, demonstrating that for so long the actions of many of the community’s leaders were drastically out of step with what they were preaching.

Roberts identifies clericalism as the attitude that caused bishops to protect abusers. Even more disturbing, and Benedict has touched on this in his remarks on repentance, is a distortion in Catholic attitudes and teaching on sin, repentance, punishment, and expiation. Unconditional forgiveness is preached: God forgives unconditionally, we are repeatedly told (without our repentance?) and therefore victims must unconditionally forgive their abuser and oppressors, even if the abusers and oppressors remain unrepentant and unpunished. There is something seriously wrong with this, as the first word of the message of the Gospel is “Repent,” but it needs someone more learned in doctrine and history than I am to sort out what went wrong.

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The Clericalist Mind at Work

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Roger Vangheluwe was a priest when he began sexually abusing his five-year-old nephew. The abuse continued even after 1984, when Vangheluwe, at age 48, became bishop of Bruges. 

The boy’s family pressured the boy to remain silent to preserve the bishop’s career. The bishop gave the family money (source of money unspecified). As he grew up, the boy was filled with anger. 

 Over the years, the nephew — who still does not want his name used publicly — channeled his rage into creating art: giant screaming images in gnarled wood or a montage of a boy being crushed by a mattress. (NYT) 

In 1996 Father Rik Devillé told Cardinal Godfried Danneels about the abuse.  

… he said, the cardinal listened impatiently, glancing frequently at his watch. Weeks later, Father Devillé received a letter from the cardinal. “Stop making unfounded public accusations against the church and its functionaries if you don’t have proof,” it read. (NYT)

(Danneels now claims to have no memory of this incident) 

A niece of the now-adult nephew received a holy card from Bishop Vangheluwe for her confirmation.  It had a note about the importance of a healthy childhood. This enraged the nephew, and he decided to confront Vangheluwe and Danneels. 

In April 2010 the nephew met with Vangheluwe and Cardinal Danneels. The nephew was expecting the new archbishop Leonard to be there but he did not come.  Vangheluwe left the room. 

(The translation of the transcript is rough. I will replace it if I can find a better one)

Nephew : So I lost my entire youth to abuse by my uncle Roger. Sexual and still mentally and I think I should do something and that I have a duty to report that to a higher authority.Danneels: What would you really want? I know the story, he has already told me. You should not tell me it all again, but what would you really want me to do?

Nephew: I give the responsibility to you, I cannot decide, I have this burden on my shoulders and I want rid myself of this burden and to give that burden to you. That is my intention.

Danneels: Yes …

Nephew: And you do what you think should be done, because I do not know how the whole system works, so …

Danneels: Do you want it to be published, anyway?

Nephew: Euuhm … I leave it to you.

Danneels: Actually, Monsignor will resign next year, would it actually be better that you wait.

Nephew: No, no, no.

 

 

 

(snip)


Nephew: I want to go through it all. For him the only honest and the easiest way to die with an easy conscience would be to give up his responsibilities. It will be much easier for him. And before you actually go through the mud and everything you need to undergo, and then you come to terms with yourself.Danneels: That’s what prompted strong. It is quite strong to say: you have publicly humiliated for everyone.

Nephew: You need to anyway. He should just resign. 


Danneels:

 Ah yes, that’s the humiliation that he must resign, hey.Nephew: Yes yes.

Danneels: Then people say: why should he resign? So, they’re going to find out. you know, why he resigned they’re going to find out. Which is quite a burden …

Nephew: But why are you so sorry for him and not me?

Danneels: I can tell you that.

Nephew: You always try to defend him, I thought I was going to have some support, I must defend myself here from things I cannot do anything about.

Danneels: No, I’m not saying anything you can do anything about it but something should be done differently.

Nephew: But what should be done?

Danneels: Questions of forgiveness anyway.

Nephew: And that was enough for you

Danneels: When you say …

Nephew: Why should I? He had been able to do that much earlier but it was not necessary. When I was 18, my father told him. We are now 25 years on and he has never asked forgiveness, why could he not do that much earlier, then it might never have come this far.

No, I will not accept that he just disappears from the scene in heavenly glory and that it is the matter finished. He has his responsibility that he has taken all this and I wish that you now take your responsibility as the superior. That is my intention.

Danneels: Yes, I can do no wrong because I did not.

 

 

 

  

(snip) 

Danneels: Well, I would suggest that we might be better to wait for a date next year when he would usually resign.

Nephew: No, I do not agree, and him taking glory in saying goodbye, no I cannot. The cover-up technique that you have used for so many years as you have, I’ll have to learn to live with, but eh   

(snip)Danneels: But I have no authority over Monsignor Vangheluwe.

Nephew: And who did?

Danneels: Actually, no one except the Pope.

(snip)

 

 

 


Nephew: Then perhaps you can go through and that you can arrange an appointment with the Pope and then we’ll go there. It is already 42 years that I suffer and I want no more, I can not stop, I can not, and I would not leave everything as it is.It has a very big impact in the family in everything in my relationship with my wife in everything, I’m tired of that life and that the matter remains so dominant, and I would agree to that. I have arrived at the age that I want my freedom for life.

Danneels: Actually, the first responsibility lies with him, he, rather than from his superiors.

Nephew: But if he does not want to do what has to be done …

Danneels: What do you ask of him? that he would resign?

Nephew: But he must decide, I just want to tell, that’s it. You wish me to say something that I cannot say I can not, I do not know how to proceed, or should I look for another way for me to obtain closure.

And today I had demanded that he confess openly speaks to the family, saying that he did those things. While everyone is there.

Danneels: He will do that.

Nephew: I had expected for today, we can directly do better and we’ll see, if nothing happens, then I go to the pope.

Danneels: The pope is not so easy to get though to …

(snip)

 

 

 


Danneels: I do not know if it would benefit either you or him to give a dramatic deadline.Nephew: I still think that the victim’s privacy should be respected, there should not be no names used.

Danneels: But yes, you put him in a quandary.

Nephew: I have all my life been in a difficult position, I’m not planning to have pity, I want that fight to finish, it has done for me, that I finally once again have a clean slate for myself that I do what I want to do.

I was in a Catholic school and I was brought up Catholic. I’m very upset with that institute, I also read the newspapers, so I think I have an obligation to do so. How can I get my children to believe in something with such a background that will not move on, then you just move straight into the next generation. And everything remains as it is, and that is not the intention of the church.

Danneels: No, it’s not the intention to discredit someone?

Nephew: Give me another solution, I should forgive and it is resolved.

Danneels: No, no, no.

Nephew: And he goes on as normal.

Danneels: You could also say he will resign next year anyway, and that for example, he says, look, I no longer go on television and such. With those things, and you come to a year.

Nephew: No, I want it placed in your hands and then you decide.

Danneels: You can grab us and blackmail, hey, and say look, you have to do something.

Nephew: What?

Danneels: You can blackmail and say, look if you do not say …

Nephew: Why should I want to blackmail? I’m not going to blackmail.

Danneels: Well, if you for example say they do nothing, and you bring it to public notice …

(snip)

 

 

 

Nephew:

We were forced to be married by him, for everything, the children were baptized by him, how can I explain to them? I now have my oldest son who asked yesterday: Look, what happened with me. They do not yet know what happened? That is still true, that cannot continue, and waiting for everything to retutn to the same situation- that’s still no solution?Danneels: Ah! We can also, as I said, ask forgiveness and give forgiveness, which is also a possibility.

Nephew:

That’s not possible for me, I do not believe anymore, as you do in these things, no, it is not possible.

That’s not possible for me, I do not believe anymore, as you do in these things, no, it is not possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Nephew: If I cause an accident, drunk, I will also be punished.Danneels: A punishment sentences. You have penalties that are public and private penalties, that’s a big difference huh. Your name gets out, pulled through the mud …

Nephew: My name?

Danneels: His name.

Nephew: He has ensured that my whole life is pulled through the mud. From 5 to 18 years old. Can you imagine?

 

 


After this failed meeting a friend of the nephew e-mailed all the bishops of Belgium and revealed the abuse. The nephew very wisely secretly taped this meeting. He released the transcript after the Belgian bishops claimed that he was trying to blackmail them. 

Vangheluwe publicly admitted the abuse and resigned: 

 “When I was still just a priest, and for a certain period at the beginning of my episcopate, I sexually abused a minor from my immediate environment,” 

Danneels successor, Leonard, said this about the resignation of the confessed incestuous child abuser: 

that Vangheluwe was known as a “great brother and dynamic bishop” who was highly appreciated within the Belgian Church 

Several things come through in this transcript: Cardinal Danneels, a hero of the progressive wing of the Church, is as much a clericalist as the most hidebound Italian cardinal. His sole concern is protecting the career and reputation of a bishop. The pain of the victim, a mere layman, is invisible to Danneels, whose only concern is with a fellow cleric. 

Danneels disclaims all responsibility – only the pope can do anything – but of course it is very difficult to arrange a meeting with the pope. 

Vangheluwe is unrepentant. He has never asked for forgiveness. He nephew correctly states that the only way to obtain forgiveness is for Vangheluwe to take responsibility for what he has done, and Vangheluwe has refused to do that his whole life. 

The nephew is a classic example of the Stockholm syndrome. He let his abuser witness his marriage and baptize his children. The hierarchy has perfected the technique of cultivating the Stockholm syndrome among victims of clerical abuse. 

Danneels tries to manipulate the nephew but claiming that the nephew is blackmailing Danneels by saying he will go public unless V resigns. Danneels tells the victim that he – the victim – should ask for forgiveness. The misuse of demands to forgive to protect clerical malefactors will weigh heavy on the scales at the Day of Judgment. 

Belgian law states that the victim of sexual abuse has ten years after he reaches 18 to report the abuse. Since the nephew was under pressure from his family to keep quiet, he did not report in that time period and  Vangheluwe cannot be criminally prosecuted. 

The police raid that seized documents form Danneels residence was pronounced illegal and the documents cannot be used in prosecutions.


No cleric in Belgium will be inconvenienced by an earthly court of law. The hierarchy are no doubt congratulating themselves on their cleverness in manipulating the situation. We shall see whether they can manipulate the Great Assizes.

 

 

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They Never Learn

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In April 2010, eight years after Boston exploded with the news about pedophile cover-ups, Cardinal Danneels, the great progressive hero in the Church, continued the policy of hushing things up. Reuters reports:

The former head of Belgium’s Catholic Church suggested to a sexual abuse victim it would be better to delay a public statement on the case until the bishop involved resigned in 2011, a Church spokesman said on Saturday.

Jurgen Mettepenningen confirmed transcripts in Belgium’s De Standaard newspaper of a meeting Roman Catholic Cardinal Godfried Danneels held with Bishop Roger Vangheluwe and a sexual abuse victim of the bishop in April 2010.

“It is true this meeting and conversation took place, and that the transcript is correct,” Mettepenningen told Reuters.

Danneels’s spokesman Toon Osaer told Reuters the cardinal had not covered up anything and had openly spoken about the April 2010 meeting following Vangheluwe’s resignation two weeks after the conversation took place.

In the transcripts, published in De Standaard on Saturday, Danneels suggested the victim should make no public statement about the abuse until Vangheluwe retired the following year.

“It might be better to wait for a date in the next year, when he is due to resign,” Danneels told the victim, according to the transcripts.

He told the victim he believed a public announcement would not serve the interests of the victim or the bishop, the transcripts said.

“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.”

Vangheluwe resigned after admitting having abused the victim for a number of years, both as a priest and a bishop.

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