Belgium Bishop Admits To Prior Child Abuse and Resigns

Another high-ranking Catholic priest has resigned in the wake of the child abuse scandal. In Belgium, the highest-ranking bishop Roger Vangheluwe, 73, the Bishop of Bruges, has resigned after admitting that he also engaged in child abuse.

Vangheluwe issued a statement that admitted that “When I was still just a priest, and for a certain period at the beginning of my episcopate, I sexually abused a minor from my immediate environment . . . The victim is still marked by what happened. Over the course of these decades I have repeatedly recognized my guilt toward him and his family, and I have asked forgiveness. But this did not pacify him, as it did not pacify me.”

Pope Benedict XVI has accepted his resignation.

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