FILE - This Feb. 15, 2007 file photo shows then Bishop of Bruges Roger Vangheluwe, in Bruges, Belgium. Pope Francis has defrocked a notorious Belgian bishop who admitted 14 years ago that he sexually abused his nephew but faced no Vatican punishment. FILE - This Feb. 15, 2007 file photo shows then Bishop of Bruges Roger Vangheluwe, in Bruges, Belgium.
Vangheluwe, 87, shot to international infamy in 2010 amid disclosures he had sexually abused his young nephew for over a dozen years when he was a priest and later a bishop. He later admitted he also abused a second nephew. All along, he made light of his crimes, describing his abuse as “a little game” that didn’t involve “rough sex.”
In September, Antwerp Bishop Johan Bonny told Belgian broadcaster VRT that the Belgian bishops had asked the Vatican for years, in writing and in person, to defrock Vangheluwe but got no response. Lieve Halsberghe, a Belgian advocate for abuse survivors, said the Vatican’s belated laicization brought no justice to Vangheluwe’s victims and was a mere “PR stunt” ahead of Francis’ visit later this year to Leuven, where the pope is to commemorate the 600th anniversary of Belgium’s Catholic university.
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