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	Catholic Bishop Hides As Abuse Crisis Unfolds By Jonathan Rugman Channel 4 September 12, 2010 http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/catholic+bishop+hides+as+abuse+crisis+unfolds/3765077 [with video ] As the Pope prepares to come to Britain, the Catholic church is engulfed by a new crisis. Jonathan Rugman has distressing details of an inquiry into child abuse by priests in Belgium, that has produced some of the most damning evidence yet. Former bishop Roger Vangheluwe - the most senior Catholic clergyman in Europe to be directly linked with the allegations - has gone into hiding after admitting he abused a young nephew for 13 years. Now aged 73, His Excellency was Belgium's longest serving Bishop, until he was forced to admit in April that he had been abusing his own nephew and offered the Pope his resignation. Bishop Roger immediately went into hiding at the Abbey of Saint Sixtus in Flanders, but now it seems even the good Trappists of Saint Sixtus have had enough. In the early hours of yesterday morning, the former Bishop left here for an undisclosed location. In a written statement he admitted his guilt and said he was sorry for what he had done. But the Catholic church has not defrocked him for abusing his 5 year old nephew - and he can not be tried under Belgian law because the crime was committed more than 10 years ago. Since he resigned, he has plunged the church into the worst child abuse scandal across Europe. Pope Benedict XVI's four-day visit next week will be the first papal visit to the UK since 1982. Bishop Roger presided in the medieval city of Bruges, in a cathedral dating back over 800 years. Church attendance is already below 10 percent in Belgium but the Bishop bizarrely may have done his dwindling flock a favour. That is the view of Belgium's leading child psychiatrist, Professor Peter Adriaenssens, who on Friday announced that he had finished an official investigation into decades of child abuse within the church. His findings shocked Belgium - 350 priests are thought to be involved - with at least 13 of their victims committing suicide. But only 20 victims dared come forward before the Bishop resigned.
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