Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Kevin ClarkeAugust 30, 2010

... shortest one act play.

Belgian's Cardinal Godfried Danneels, met with a victim of sexual assault, now 42, and his uncle-perpetrator, Bishop Robert Vangheluwe, in early April. The bishops spoke freely because they did not understand the conversation was being taped and would not be kept secret as so many others like it had. As a result, their conversation provides the most succinct explanation for the complicity and failure of our church in this continuing crisis. From today's N.Y. Times

Cardinal: "The bishop will resign next year, so actually it would be better for you to wait... I don’t think you’d do yourself or him a favor by shouting this from the rooftops.” The cardinal warns 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.”

Victim: “He has dragged my whole life through the mud, from 5 until 18 years old. Why do you feel sorry for him and not for me?”

 

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
Molly Roach
13 years 8 months ago
The bishops of this church are the ones who are and have been doing grave harm to it.  They are disreputable and are making the church so.  NY Times is only a newspaper-not an agent is this ghastly drama.
ed gleason
13 years 8 months ago
Cardinal says "not drag his name through the mud.”
The hierarchal cover-up is still  dragging the entire Body of Christ through the mud. Cut the rope,,, resign  
Gloria Sullivan
13 years 8 months ago
The Roman Catholic Church has been found out! We  who have the compassion and the love of Christ in our hearts, know that  all  have been generationally brainwashed since  it's  inception.. St. Paul warned the new Christians not  to listen to those people who have infiltraited their  little groups, as they were preaching a gospel other than the Gospel that Jesus Christ taught them..  He said, "even if they come to you as angels , do not listen to them. "  Some listened to their gospel. Thus   you have the gospel of MAN and not of Christ.  Let the World Court  rule on the Crimes Against Humanity that have been committed  for milenium[s] The  Roman Catholic Church  has been found out in every country they have blasted their way into to do their mighty work of  taking  what they could take. Pretending to do good.
MAUREEN TURLISH SISTER
13 years 8 months ago
This latest example of the abuse of power and authority in the Roman Catholic Church by Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the former leader of the Belgian Church, puts the lie to statements made not so many years ago by members of the hierarchy that the sexual abuse of children by clergymen was uniquely an American phenomenon.

Here in the United States previously sealed depositions that church authorities never expected to be made public support the fact that attempts at containment know no national boundaries.

Crimes against humanity?  No question. 

Will the institutional Church take ownership for the complicity of its leadership in covering up for the actions of those who have preyed on the young and their own actions in putting so many more children in harm's way?  Doubtful. 

To date, have any complicit bishops in the U.S. been sanctioned for their actions? Rewarded, yes.  Sanctioned, no.
The crisis continues worldwide while in the U.S. bishops and state Catholic Conferences continue to viciously oppose legislative reform in any state where bills addressing it have been introduced.

Even in the state of Delaware which now has no criminal or civil statutes of limitations on felony sexual abuse of children, the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington managed to get around the 2007 Child Victims Law and stopping the civil trials brought against it by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy almost a year ago.

Certainly not what one expected when the bishops promised Accountability & Transparency in 2002.

Sister Maureen Paul Turlish
Victims' Advocate
New Castle, Delaware
maureenpaulturlish@yahoo.com

David Pasinski
13 years 8 months ago
Thank you, Sister Maureen.  Cardinal Danneels was caught on tape, but I have heard of these types of conversations in various contexts by some of our finest bishops and priests that were under the collective delusion of protecting a priest or the "church" at the cost of the voice of the victim and true justice.  And the sad thing is that I don't believe that we really past this era even with the Dallas reforms.  The youngest generation of clergy certainly have tendencies towards a role of the priest and the Church that make them disposed towards such accomodation even if they personally deplore these actions. 
J STANGLE
13 years 8 months ago
I don't understand how repeating any article about the Catholic Church published in the New York Times can do anything other than grave harm to the Catholic Church and the faith of it's members. The New York Times is simply disreputable when it comes to covering matters of the Catholic Church. Not only that, but those who repeat the New York Times stories become disreputable. 

The latest from america

People pick through discarded produce at the central market for fruit and vegetables in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Argentina has been in a state of economic upheaval for years with two constants—a continuous increase in poverty and corresponding efforts by the Catholic Church to respond to that need.
Lucien ChauvinMay 20, 2024
A surefire way to lose your congregation is to start a homily with “In today’s Gospel reading,” says Thomas Groome. “The purpose of good preaching,” he says, “is to bring our lives to God and God to our lives.” A homilist’s job, then, is to facilitate a meaningful conversation between the two.
PreachMay 20, 2024
In an interview with Norah Jones April 24 on “60 Minutes,” Pope Francis clarified that “Fiducia Supplicans” didn’t allow blessings of “the union” but of “each person.”
Pope Francis accepts the offertory gifts during Pentecost Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on May 19, 2023. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
The pope devoted his entire Pentecost homily to describing how the Holy Spirit works in the lives of Christians with both “power and gentleness.”
Gerard O’ConnellMay 19, 2024