I'm surprised it still makes headlines, considering how regularly it comes to light nowadays. This one is pretty damning though for the fact that it shows plainly how systemic the abuse is and how barely a single area of the country was immune from it. The idea that it's just a few rotten apples is long gone, this apple is rotten to the core.

---

In Belgium, church hit by sex scandal

Sex abuse scandals have once again surfaced in the Catholic Church with Belgium releasing a report that reveals hundreds of alleged abuse cases across the country.


A Catholic Church-backed commission in Belgium published a 200-page report on Friday suggesting it had received 475 complaints in the first six months of this year mostly about the sexual abuse of minors.

The commission said the pedophilia allegations were committed in the 1950s through the late 1980s by Catholic clergy, religious teachers, and adults in nearly every congregation in the country.

"We can say that no congregation escapes sexual abuse of minors by one or several of its members," AFP quoted the report's authors.

According to the testimonies provided by 124 anonymous "survivors," most cases of abuse involved 12-year-old victims, though in some cases the victims were two, four, five, and seven.

A woman in the report testified that she was abused at age 17 by a priest and tried to seek help from a bishop in 1983.

"I told him 'I have a problem with one of your priests'. He told me: 'Ignore him and he will leave you alone'," she said.

The Catholic Church has repeatedly been hit by sex abuse scandals over the past year. Some even urged Pope Benedict XVI to step down after allegations surfaced that he had covered up some cases of abuse.

Source: Press TV

Vanessa wrote on Sep 12^th, 2010 at 3:13pm:


http://www.facebook.com/ArrestThePope