BishopAccountability.org
	Vangeluwe Echoes Donohue By Leon J. Podles The Dialogue April 15, 2011 http://www.podles.org/dialogue/ The pedophile bishop may have read the New York Times ad, or perhaps the Vatican has put out talking points: Vangheluwe complained in the hour-long VT4 interview that the church was targeted in abuse probes, and that other sectors like sports organisations were let off too easily. “Why is it different for priests than for other situations. Why should the church pay compensation and there is no compensation in other professions,” he said. “The church should not be pushed in a special corner.” During the interview, Vangheluwe sat relaxed, sometimes had a smile dancing on his lips, a twinkle in his eye and shook his shoulders while trying to minimise his abuse. He said that despite acknowledging the abuse, he would never willingly forsake his priesthood. He said he had made his vows and he would “not break them”. Vangheluwe was Belgium’s longest-serving bishop when the scandal broke and was forced to admit he had abused his nephew, now in his early 40s, for years and even after becoming a bishop in 1984. He said it started out at crowded family gatherings when lodgings were so cramped he had to sometimes share a bed with a child. “There was a moment when we were alone and it was almost a habit that it happened then,” he said of the abuse. Vangheluwe said it ended when the nephew told him years later “rather forcefully” to stop it. The abuse of the second nephew also happened in “the early period” when he had to share bunks “and it also happened a little bit”. A few years later the most of the family knew it.
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