By Stephen Castle
New York Times
June 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/world/europe/26belgium.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1277488971-EtCoS7h6NMv0NpaO736R1g
ROME — The Vatican expressed "shock" on Friday at the raid on Thursday by the Belgian police of church offices in their search for hidden evidence of child sex abuse by priests. It also voiced its "indignation" at what it called the "violation" of two cardinals' tombs in the search.
In a bold and provocative assertion of state over church as anger rises in Europe over abuse by priests, the police not only detained the members of the Belgian Bishops' Conference for nine hours on Thursday while searching for documents related to sex abuse cases, they also drilled into the tombs of two cardinals in the Brussels Cathedral.
"It was worthy of 'The Da Vinci Code,' " the archbishop of Belgium, Andre-Joseph Leonard, said at a news conference Friday in Brussels.
"The justice system does its work and it has the right to carry out searches," the archbishop said. "Nonetheless I find it slightly surprising that it went as far as poking around in tombs."
The raid, which has few if any recent precedents, was seen as a bold move and a provocation to church authorities, who recently asked a committee to investigate allegations of sex abuse by priests.
In Leuven, Belgium, on Thursday, the police also confiscated all the case files and the computer of Peter Adriaenssens, a well-regarded child psychiatrist who oversees that committee's investigations.
"This is most unusual," said Gerald Fogarty, professor of history and religious studies at the University of Virginia. "Even in the United States, with all the anger in Boston, this did not happen."
The Vatican on Friday issued a formal complaint to Belgium through the Belgian ambassador to the Holy See.
The bishops had gathered at the palace of the archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels for their monthly meeting when the police arrived and detained them from 10 a.m. until 7:30 p.m., church officials said. They also searched nearby church buildings.
"It was not a pleasant experience, but everything was handled very correctly," the spokesman for the Belgian Bishops' Conference, Eric de Beukelaer, said in a statement circulated by the Vatican.
On Thursday, the authorities also seized materials from the home of Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Archbishop Leonard's predecessor, and took all the computers from the church's finance department, Mr. de Beukelaer said.
In the Cathedral of Mechelen north of Brussels, the police drilled into the tomb of Cardinal Jozef-Ernest Van Roey, and Cardinal Léon-Josef Suenens, two former archbishops of Mechelen-Brussels, and used cameras to look for documents, Mr. de Beukelaer said.
In the statement, the Vatican said its secretary of state "expressed great stupor at the way in which the seizures were conducted yesterday by Belgian authorities and indignation at the fact that two tombs were violated."
The police did not comment on the allegations of tomb raiding, the Belgian news agency Belga reported Friday.
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| André-Joseph Léonard, the Belgian archbishop, spoke at a news conference in Brussels on Friday, with Jozef De Kesel, left, the newly appointed bishop of Bruges. Photo by RACHEL DONADIO |
Caroline Sagesser, a social policy expert at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, said the church had no legal protection from investigations, although sometimes the police will refrain from entering church property out of respect, as in a recent case when asylum seekers took refuge in a church.
Church property in Belgium is often owned by municipalities and regions, priests are mostly paid by the government and the church is exempt from taxes, Ms. Sagesser added.
The Belgian Bishops' Conference said in a statement that the seizure "went against the right to privacy" of the victims and "seriously harmed the necessary and excellent work of this commission," while the Vatican also expressed "regret" for breaches "of the confidentiality to which victims have a right."
In its statement, the Vatican also said it "reiterated its strong condemnation of every sinful and criminal act of abuse of minors by members of the church" as well as "the necessity to repair and confront such acts in a way that conforms to the exigencies of justice and the teachings of the Gospel."
Stephen Castle contributed reporting from Brussels, and Jack Healy from New York.
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