What utter humiliation! Poor new Archbishop Léonard certainly did not deserve this "gift" from the past administration. From the BBC:
Belgian authorities have raided the headquarters of the Belgian Catholic Church during an investigation into child sex abuse claims.A spokesman for the Brussels prosecutors' office confirmed that the palace of the Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels had been sealed off.Police have also raided the home of retired Archbishop Godfried Danneels.Belgium is one of several countries in which a stream of abuse claims have shaken the Roman Catholic Church.A prosecutors' spokesman told AFP news agency that prosecutors had "been informed of accusations denouncing abuse of minors committed by a certain number of Church figures".An inquiry into child sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Belgium has been running for several years.
Liberal Bishops: a never-ending gift to the Church (even after retirement)!
UPDATE: The Brussels Journal adds that the search included the crypt of Mechlin Cathedral (the historic main Cathedral of the Primate of the Low Countries), and also the following:
Since the revelation in April that Cardinal Danneels’s close friend and collaborator, Mgr Roger Vangheluwe, the Bishop of Bruges, had been a practicing pedophile throughout, and even before, his career as a bishop, victims have gained confidence that they will be taken seriously, and complaints have been pouring in, both to the courts and to the extra-judicial investigation committee of the archdiocese. The new archbishop Mgr. André-Joseph Léonard, has urged victims to take their case to the courts.
The illustrated testimony of Dr. Alexandra Colen (homeschooling mother and Member of the Belgian Parliament for Antwerp) on Catholic life during the reign of Cardinal Danneels is just too shocking (BEWARE: STRONG CONTENT, ABSOLUTELY UNSUITABLE FOR CHILDREN OR YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN). Caesar is the instrument of a justice that the hierarchy in Belgium (and in Rome, at least during the last Pontificate) ceaselessly denied to children and parents. Countless bodies and millions of souls were abused. May Danneels, Vangheluwe, and their collaborators be brought to justice in this world - and may God have mercy on their souls.
