Now we know in great detail just what much of the hierarchy of the Dutch Church - one of the national Churches that led the Universal Church in the run-up to Vatican II and in the implementation of the Conciliar reforms - was up to in the decades following World War II, before the Council, and after it: systematic abuse, cover-up in an almost unbelievable scale, spiritual death.
This was the Church of "The Dutch Catechism", the "Church of the future", the Church that introduced Communion in the hand, wild liturgies, the newly-invented "Eucharistic prayers" that were not the Canon that the Roman Rite had always known: it was the avant-garde Church that led the Council Fathers to the glorious springtime that would follow.
This was the Church of "The Dutch Catechism", the "Church of the future", the Church that introduced Communion in the hand, wild liturgies, the newly-invented "Eucharistic prayers" that were not the Canon that the Roman Rite had always known: it was the avant-garde Church that led the Council Fathers to the glorious springtime that would follow.
1. Dutch RC Church knew about abuse [Radio Netherlands] December 16:
Roman Catholic orders, congregations and dioceses knew about the abuse of minors in Catholic institutions, but failed to help the victims or take action against the abusers.
This is the conclusion of the Deetman Inquiry which on Friday published its final report on abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands.
The report points to the inadequate organisation, and the closed culture of the Dutch church province as the main reason for its inadequate response to the widespread abuse. The church also sought to avoid a scandal.
Inquiry Chair Wim Deetman, a former education minister, estimates that between 10,000 and 20,000 minors were abused in Catholic boarding schools, children’s homes and orphanages. In several thousand cases the abuse could be characterised as very serious.
The Deetman Inquiry was able to identify 800 of the abusers. It received more than 2,000 reports, 1,800 of which involved sexual abuse. The abusers were, or are, active in dioceses, congregations and orders. At least 105 of them are still alive. Mr Deetman could not say how many of these 105 are still active in the Roman Catholic Church.
2. Covering the Catholic sex abuse cover-up [Radio Netherlands] December 16.
Roman Catholic bishops in the Netherlands protected sexual abusers and covered up their crimes, according to a major new report released today. The church-installed Deetman Commission says there were up to 20,000 victims of abuse between the end of World War II and 1981.
Radio Netherlands Worldwide journalist Robert Chesal brought to light the abuse that led to a national scandal. He looks back at how the story unfolded.
...
Salesians
On the internet I quickly found a testimony by a man named Janne Geraets, now in his late 50s, who claimed to have been abused at a boarding school in the early 1960s. I arranged to meet him the following day and heard his story of the painful and deeply damaging abuse he suffered at the hands of a Salesian father.
As I walked to the bus stop after that interview, my head still filled with the disturbing images Geraets had described, I started thinking about where to look next.
Disturbing signs
I discovered that there were some worrying trends in the Netherlands which were as yet unreported in the mainstream media. For instance, a prominent Dutch jurist told me why he had stepped down as chairman of the assessment board of the Roman Catholic abuse hotline.
In fact, he said, the entire board had resigned because their recommendations on how to deal with known abusers in the church were repeatedly being ignored by the Dutch bishops....
Spurred on by Janne Geraets' insistence that he was just one of many children abused at his school, I enlisted the help of experienced investigative journalist Joep Dohmen at the NRC Handelsblad newspaper. Together, Dohmen and I pieced together a story that revealed the abuse of three minors by Salesians from the same boarding school.
We also brought to light the fact that one of the most respected bishops in the Netherlands, monsignor Ad van Luyn, had taught at that same school, in close proximity to what later appeared to be a hotbed of sexual abuse.
Our first publication on 26 February 2010, sparked an avalanche of abuse reports from former boarding school pupils throughout the Netherlands. The Catholic hotline was completely unable to handle the workload and within weeks the first steps were taken to create a commission of inquiry led by former government minister Wim Deetman....The church in the Netherlands hardly made a better impression. The top Catholic figure here, Cardinal Simonis, left mouths agape when he denied that Dutch church leaders were aware of the wide-scale abuse by priests in their midst.
He chose a historically loaded phrase the Dutch normally use to mock feigned German ignorance of the Nazi concentration camps, saying “Wir haben es nicht gewusst”.
But Simonis' words sounded decidedly hollow when we reported, months later, that he had helped move a pedophile priest from one parish to another, allowing abuse of minors to continue.
3. English summary of the Deetman Report [Deetman Commission].
