Since all the Catholic media agencies do not work on weekends, I am forced to use the AP report for this story...
Pope and Belgian bishops
meet over sex abuse
VATICAN CITY, May 8 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI met at the Vatican with Belgium's bishops on Saturday, telling them their church was "tried by sin in these times," over the minor's abuse scandals.
Belgium's Catholic church has been rocked by recent allegations of abuse by paedophile priests and clumsy, slow handling of the cases by the bishops.
Belgians are stunned by recent revelations that Roger Vangheluwe, the bishop of the Belgian city of Bruges, 73, abused a boy for years.
There were also contentions by a retired Belgian priest, named Rik Deville, that he told Belgium's then highest-ranking prelate, now Cardinal Godfried Danneels over a decade ago, about the abuse but that no action was taken.
Vangheluwe stepped down last month, expressing sorrow in a statement for having abused the child for years.
"He (the Pope) obviously referred to the drama we lived in Belgium, in the archdiocese of Bruges, and he spoke about it briefly, knowing that all the rest was already understood and already said," Brussels Archbishop Andre-Mutien Leonard said.
Leonard himself has been accused in the Belgian media of covering up a case of church abuse in the 1990s, but has denied the allegation.
The Belgium clergy abuse scandal has overshadowed the collapse of the Belgian government, with nearly every day bringing new witness accounts and reports of attempts to hush up abuse.
The Belgian churchmen began a series of meetings at the Vatican on Monday that culminated in talks with Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday.
"I urge you now not to see the problem in the Belgian Church as a unique one, even if it is a very important one," the Archbishop of Brussels added.
The Pope also accepted the resignation of a German bishop accused of abusing minors, on Saturday*....
[More than half the story is a rehash of the AP-MSM line against the Church and the Pope in the sex-abuse story, so I cut it off and have added it below, for the record.]
Here is a full translation of the Holy Father's address to tbe bishops, which was delivered in French:
Dear Brothers in the Episcopate,
I am happy to welcome you on the occasion of your visit 'ad limina Apostolorum' which brings you on pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul.
This visit is a sign of the ecclesial communion that unites the Catholic community of Belgium to the Holy See. It is also a happy occasion to reinforce this communion in reciprocal listening, in praying together, and in the charity of Christ, especially in these times when your Church has been sorely tried by sin.
I sincerely thank Mons. André-Joseph Léonard for the words he addressed to me in your name and that of of your diocesan communities. I would also like to address a special thought to Cardinal Godfried Danneels who led the Archdiocese of Malines-Brussels and your bishops' conference for more than 30 years.
Reading your reports on the state of your respective dioceses, I have been able to take the measure of the transformations that have taken place in Belgian society. They have to do with tendencies that are common to many European countries but which have specific characteristics in your country. Some of them, already highlighted in the last ad limina visit [five years ago], have become more accentuated.
I refer to the decrease in the number of baptized Catholics who openly profess their faith and their membership in the Church; the progressive elevation in the median age of your clergy and religious; the insufficiency of ordained or consecrated persons engaged in active pastoral work or in the social and educational domains; and the decreasing number of candidates to the priesthood and consecrated life.
Christian formation, expecially that of the younger generations, as well as questions relating to respect for life and the institutions of marriage and the family, constitute other sensitive points.
One could also mention the complex and often worrisome situations related to the economic crisis, to unemployment, to the social integration of immigrants, and to peaceful coexistence among the different linguistic and cultural communities of your nation.
I have been able to see how much you are aware of these situations and the importance of insisting on a more solid and profound religious formation. I have seen your Pastoral letter, the beautiful Profession of Faith, issued as part of your initiative "Growing the faith".
Through this letter, you wish to inspire all the faithful to rediscover the beauty of the Christian faith. Thanks to prayer and to common reflection on revealed truths as expressed in the Credo, one rediscovers that faith does not only consist of accepting a set of truths and values, but first of all, of trusting in Someone, God - to listen to him, to love him, and to talk to him, and finally, to commit oneself to his service (cf P. 5).
A signfificant event, for today and for tomorrow, was the canonization of Fr. Damien De Veuster. This new saint speaks to the conscience of Belgians. Has he not been designated as your nation's most illustrious son of all time?
His greatness, lived in the total gift of himself to his leprous brothers, to the point of getting the disease himself and dying of it, resides in his interior richness, his constant prayer, his union with Christ whom he saw in his brothers, to whom, like Christ, he gave all of himself without reserve. In this Year for Priests, it is good to offer his priestly and missionary example, especially to priests and religious.
The decline in the number of priests should not be seen as an inevitable process. The Second Vatican Council affirmed forcefully that the Church cannot do away with the ministry of priests. It is therefore necessary and urgent to give this ministry its rightful place and to recognize its irreplaceable sacramental character.
Consequently, this means the necessity for an ample and serious pastoral ministry for vocations, based on the exemplary holiness of priests, on attention to the seeds of vocation present in many young people, and on assiduous and trusting prayer as Jesus urged (cf Mt 9,37).
I address a heartfelt and thankful greeting to all the priests and consecrated persons, often overburdened with work, and who need the support and friendship of their bishop and colleagues, without forgetting the elderly priests who have dedicated all their life in the service of God and their brothers. Nor do I forget the missionaries.
[I wish] for all - priests, religious and lay faithful of Belgium - may receive my encouragement and the expression of my gratitude, and that they may never forget that only Christ can calm all storms (cf Mt 8,25-26) and give back strength and courage (cf Mt 11,28-30, Mt 14,30-32) to lead a holy life, in full fidelity to their own ministry, to their consecration to God, and to Christian witness.
The Constitution Sacrosanctum concilium underscores that is in liturgy that the mystery of the Church is manifested, in all its greatness and in its simplicity (cf No. 2). It is therefore important that priests take great care of liturgical celebrations, particularly the Eucharist, so that these rites may allow profound communion with the living God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
It is necessary that these celebrations take place with respect for the Church's liturgical tradition and with the active participation of the faithful, according to the role that corresponds to each one, respectively, in unifying with the Paschal mystery of Christ.
In your reports, you are attentive to the formation of laymen with a view to their increasingly effective use in animating temporal entities. This is a praiseworthy program which is born from the vocation of every baptized person configured to Christ as priest, prophet and king.
It is good to discern all the possibilities that emanate from the common calling of laymen to holiness and to apostolic commitment, respecting the essential distinction between the ministerial priesthood and the common priesthood of laymen.
All members of the Catholic community, but particularly the lay faithful, are called to openly bear witness to their faith and to be a ferment in society, while respecting the healthy secularness of public institutions as well as other religious confessions.
Such witness cannot be limited only to personal encounters, but must also assume the characteristics of public proposition, respectful but legitimate, of the values inspired by the evangelical message of Christ.
The brevity of our meeting ddoes not allow me to develop other topics which are dear to me and which you have mentioned in your reports. I will therefore end by conveying my affectionate greeting to your communities, to the priests and religious, and to all the Catholics of Belgium, assuring them of my prayers for them to the Lord.
May the Virgin Mary, venerated in many shrines in Belgium, assist you in your ministry and protect you all with her maternal tenderness. To you and to all the Catholics of the Kingdom, I impart the Apostolic Blessing with all my heart.
Strangely, the Belgian bishops' conference itself does not have a site, though it has a section on an omnibus site for the Catholic Church in Belgium, in the French language, which then refers you to a site in Flemish for Flanders, the northern part of Belgium:
*
Here's the rest of the AP story, just to keep the record straight on their unrelenting campaign:
A leading bishop from the Pope's homeland who is being investigated by prosecutors for alleged sex abuse of his post is the latest casualty of the prelates accused of molesting minors.
The Pope formally accepted the resignation offer made on April 21 by Bishop Walter Mixa, an outspoken conservative voice in the German church and a military chaplain for Germany, as well as head of the Augsburg diocese.
Bishops from around the world are summoned to Rome every five years to personally review with the pontiff matters of mutual concern, and the Belgian prelates' meeting with Benedict was long scheduled.
But with clergy abuse scandals breaking into the open in a string of Western European countries in past weeks, damage-control efforts are starting to top what otherwise could be routine discussions of long-running issues of local church concern such as immigration on the continent.
In the early weeks of the scandal in several western European churches, the Vatican tried a strategy of depicting itself as a victim, saying anti-Catholic lobbies were targeting the Pope for such conservative stands as prohibition of same-sex marriage and abortion.
But with surveys showing abuse revelations are shaking Catholic faith in Western Europe, 19 percent of faithful polled this spring in Germany said the scandal has made them think of abandoning the church, the Vatican have been making more pro-active moves, although the Pope has ignored victims' call that he takes responsibility for cover-ups.
The tendered resignations of two Irish bishops accused of covering up child abuse by Dublin clergy have been sitting on the Pope's desk since December. But recently, Benedict did accept the resignation of a third Irish bishop identified in an Irish government-ordered probe of decades of cover-ups of child-abusing clergy in the Dublin archdiocese.
Critics say the pontiff himself helped perpetuate a culture of secrecy, both when he was Munich's archbishop, and later in his long tenure as held of the Vatican office dealing with abuse allegations.
While nearly all of the bishops or cardinals implicated in the scandals have been accused of being part of a systemic cover-up of paedophilia and other abuse, the Bruges bishop himself admitted himself abusing a child, a boy from among his circle of acquaintances.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 10/05/2010 11:23]