Disgraced Belgian Bishop Leaves Vatican-Ordered French Monastery, The Cathnews, April 17, 2011

Disgraced Belgian Bishop Leaves Vatican-Ordered French Monastery

The Cathnews
April 17, 2011

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=25891

A former bishop who has admitted abusing two of his nephews in Belgium has disappeared from a French religious community where the Vatican ordered him to seek "spiritual and psychological treatment", said an AFP report in the West Australian.

Roger Vangheluwe resigned as Bishop of Bruges last year after confessing to having sex with his underage nephew, but was not prosecuted as the crimes had taken place several years previously before the statute of limitations.

Last week, he again caused outrage when he gave a television interview in which he also admitted to molesting a second nephew but insisted he did not consider hiself a paedophile nor a threat to children.

"I don't in the slightest have any sense I am a paedophile," he reportedly said in the interview. "I don't get the impression my nephew was opposed, quite the contrary," he added, although he also admitted: "I knew it wasn't good, I confessed it several times."

After the first scandal, the Vatican ordered him to seek treatment at a church community La Ferte-Imbault in France.

The interview drew outrage, a sharp denunciation from the Council of Bishops and calls for him to be prosecuted. But on Sunday it emerged that he had gone.

"He left last night," the mother superior of the Brotherhood of Jerusalem told AFP at the community. Asked where he had gone, she said: "I don't know. We are referring all questions to the papal nuncio's office in Belgium."