VATICAN CITY (AP) — Fresh off a four-nation tour of Asia, where he saw record-setting crowds and vibrant church communities, Pope Francis travels to Belgium this week as the once-staunchly Catholic country again confronts its appalling legacy of clergy sex abuse and institutional cover-up.
Associated PressPope Francis, right, talks with Belgium's King Philippe during a private audience at the Vatican, Monday, March 9, 2015. VATICAN CITY — Fresh off a four-nation tour of Asia, where he saw record-setting crowds and vibrant church communities, Pope Francis travels to Belgium this week as theagain confronts its appalling legacy of clergy sex abuse and institutional cover-up.
Revelations of Belgium’s horrific abuse scandal have dribbled out in bits over a quarter-century, punctuated by the bombshell year in 2010, when the country's longest-serving bishop,, was allowed to resign without punishment, after admitting he had sexually abused his nephew for 13 years. For the first time, Belgian victims told their stories on camera one after another, showing Flemish viewers in their living rooms the scope of the scandal in their community, the depravity of the crimes and their systematic cover-up by the Catholic hierarchy.
Their testimonies cast new attention on a scandal that had already been blamed for the steep decline in the Catholic Church over a generation in Belgium, where church authorities don't even publish statistics of weekly Mass attendance because the monthly rate is already in the single digits.and defrocked Vangheluwe, 14 years after he admitted to molesting his nephew.
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