Church in the World

Danneels urged sex-abuse victim to remain silent

Leaked tapes published last Saturday showed Cardinal Godfried Danneels, former Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, urging a man sexually abused by a bishop for 13 years not to make his case public, and to accept a private apology or keep silent until the prelate retired the following year.

The tapes, secretly recorded by the victim, undermined Cardinal Danneels’ earlier assertion that he only met the 42-year-old victim to mediate between him and his uncle, Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who had sexually abused him between the ages of five and 18. Vangheluwe abruptly resigned on 24 April after admitting to being an abuser.

As the tapes of the 8 April meeting showed, Cardinal Danneels made a concerted effort to persuade the unnamed victim to keep quiet. On several occasions, he brushed away the apparently distressed man’s pleas for help and focused firmly on shielding Vangheluwe and the Church.

“Why do you feel so sorry for him and not for me?” the victim asked at one point.

Belgians have been expecting some embarrassing revelation about Cardinal Danneels since late June, when police raided the archbishop’s office in Mechelen, the cardinal’s flat and the Church’s own abuse commission in Leuven looking for proof of sexual-abuse cases during his 30 years as primate of Belgium. The tapes deal only with the Vangheluwe case, but Belgians have been shown a man so different from his public image that, in the words of University of Leuven canon-law professor Rik Torfs, he has gone “from hero to zero”.

A bishops’ conference spokesman confirmed the transcripts in the Flemish dailies De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad were genuine. On 30 August Fernand Keuleneer, Cardinal Danneels’ lawyer, issued a statement saying that the cardinal had acted in a morally irreproachable way, that De Standaard had not published the entirety of the conversation, that the cardinal had assumed his role in the meeting was to mediate in a family drama that took place between 1973 and 1986, and that “not once during the meeting does the Cardinal exert any form of pressure on the abuse victim”.

In the tape, Cardinal Danneels first asked if the victim wanted Vangheluwe to quit. When the man said he wanted to rid himself of the onerous secret and needed advice about how to do it, the cardinal promptly suggested waiting at least until his uncle retired next year. “No, I can’t agree that he takes his leave in glory,” the victim replies.

Shifting his argument, Cardinal Danneels says he can do nothing because the bishop answers only to the Pope. When the victim suggests going to Rome to meet the pontiff, the cardinal responds: “The Pope isn’t that easy to reach.” He suggests asking for forgiveness, to which the surprised victim asks: “Who do I have to ask forgiveness from?”

A second tape recorded another meeting immediately afterwards with Danneels, Vangheluwe, the victim and a member of his family. In that session, Cardinal Danneels tells the bishop he must apologise to the whole family but does not suggest resignation. The family member accuses Vangheluwe of tearing the family apart and the meeting ended without the bishop agreeing to step down.

Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard, Danneels’ successor as primate and Brussels Archbishop, reacted to the leaked transcripts by saying, “The texts speak for themselves. It is not my job to pass judgement on them.” A lawyer for Vangheluwe’s victim said her client demanded a much clearer response from Archbishop Léonard.