Belgium Catholic Church panel investigating clerical sex abuse shuts after police raid

Belgium church panel on sex abuse shuts after raid

BRUSSELS — A panel appointed by the Catholic church to investigate clerical sex abuse in Belgium is shutting down after police seized all its files during a raid last week, the group’s chairman said Monday.

Peter Adriaenssens, a child psychiatrist who chaired the panel, said authorities betrayed the trust of nearly 500 victims who had made complaints over the past two months to the church panel and blamed state prosecutors for pursuing victims too traumatized to speak to police.

“We were bait,” he said.

The panel was shutting because it had no files to work from, Adriaenssens said. On Thursday, police raided its offices, seized documents and computers from the Belgian archbishop’s office and opened a prelate’s crypt in a cathedral.

“It is now up to (Belgian) bishops to care for victims and follow-up their complaints,” the panel said in a statement.

Glenn Audenaert, the head of Belgium’s judiciary police, said: “I respect Peter Adriaenssens, but his commission was created by the church. That commission cannot start a prosecution. Only the Justice Department can.”

On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI denounced the raids as “deplorable” — his first public comment on the deepening diplomatic rift between Belgium and the Vatican over the police raids.

Adriaenssens linked the raids to a state investigation into a possible cover-up of abuse by the Catholic Church.

The Belgian church was rocked by the April 24 resignation of its longest-serving bishop, Roger Vangheluwe, who stepped down after admitting sexually abusing a young boy when former Archbishop Godfried Danneels was in charge.

The revelation came as hundreds of cases of abuse were being reported across Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, exposing cover-ups by bishops and evidence of long-standing Vatican inaction to stop it.

Danneels resigned in January after victims said he had not responded to their complaints.

The Catholic panel had been in existence for over a decade, but for most of that time it dealt with only 30 complaints and took no discernible action on them.

Since Adriaenssens took over eight weeks ago, hundreds of men had come forward and the panel received nearly 500 complaints. The group was due to make a report to the Belgian Church in October, but Adriaenssens said prosecutors launched the raid after he told them the flood of alleged victims had slowed.

The panel also was to question 16 people who had previously complained to Danneels about sexual abuse by priests.

Rik Torfs, a canon law expert, said the Catholic Church has a poor record of investigating sex abuse claims. “It has failed badly in its treatment of many of these cases,” he said. “The church always found their fate less important than its own prestige.”

Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.