Here's a 'lip-smacking' commmentary on the Belgian raids...
The actions of lawmen
in a secularized country
without a government
by VITTORIO MESSORI
Translated from
June 27, 2010
Good news for the Catholic church from Belgium. Good news? Yes, perhaps, at least from the perspective of Realpolitik. That is, even those who are trying to do right can easily pass, if they exaggerate, over to the side of wrong. Also, as the saying goes, ridicule can be more harmful than the sword.
Let us start with the exaggeration - I am not sure if it was grotesque or ignoble - by Belgian magistrates who sent a police brigade to detain the entire bishops' conference who were holding a plenary session. The policemen confiscated all their telephones and prevented them from communicating at all with the outside world.
What were they trying to prevent? That some bishop might call the Vatican and ask to be rescued by the Swiss Guards 'By the paratroop division, please'???
Or that they might call on some monsignor who might be engaged in some unspeakable activity to get dressed and dismiss his minor partner right away as he risked being raided by the secular morality police?
Or that they might call their 'accomplices' in their respective dioceses to destroy every document that could possibly refer to sex crimes - even if all such records have already been run through with a fine-tooth comb by Belgian religious as well as state authorities?
Then there was the vaudeville act by the police colonel who led the raid he had to consult his superiors when the Apostolic Nuncio to Belgium, who was present at the bishops' meeting, presented his diplomatic passport. And his superiors in turn had to consult some minister - a virtual one, since Belgium for the moment has no government [i.e., it is between governments so it has no functioning cabinet). Eventually, much to the colonels' regret, he had to allow the Nuncio to leave - with his cellphone, too.
Also quite astute - and probably very fruitful! - was the immediate move by the police technicians to lift the hard drive from Cardinal Danneels's old computer, as, you never know, he might have kept on it any and all compromising messages and photographs, including perhaps affectionate exchanges with young men 'hooked' via Facebook!
But the most devastatingly ridiculous decision of the authors of the police raids was the assault on the tombs of two cardinal archbishops in the crypt of the splendid millennial cathedral of Mechelen (Malines) which by ancient privlege, continues to be the religious metropolis of the country.
Not just Dan Brown but even Umberto Eco might be inspired by the episode to add a chapter to a new edition of
The pendulum of Foucault. Which, as those who have read Eco's novel know, is among other things, a mocking send-off of personages like these Belgian judges who are obsessed with enigmas, mysteries, secret codes: always and only Catholic, of course.
The policemen, obviously trusting their superiors, gladly went along with their orders, these being, in effect: "Go to the old catehdral, descend into the dark crypt, open the venerated tombs of the cardinals, and there you will find the parchments documenting the evil conspiracy of the bishops and priests today, who are practitioners of pederast cults just as much as their predecessors, the Knights Templar, were!"
Indeed, as everyone should know, the fastest and surest way of hiding embarrassing and inculpating files is to get a team of skilled workers, make them work on these ancient artistic sarcophagi and use special apparatus to lift the heavy stone lids without damaging them, and then before replacing the lid, to fill the tomb with documents on the obscene rites carried on by Belgian prelates and priests.
And all at night, of course, since the Cathedral at Mechelen is one of the most visited churches in Belgium not just by the faithful but by tourists who would be suspicious if they saw masons and machinists working on the tombs!
But what to do then about these workers ordered to do the dirty job? We know that the ancient Egyptians, once the labyrinth leading to the burial chamber of the pyramid had been completed and closed off, then proceeded to the ritual beheading of all those who knew the secret since they had worked on it.
But let us not say it aloud, lest the Belgians take us seriously and order next the investigation of a possible massacre of masons ordered by the Primate of Belgium!
In any case, beyond such black humor: the problem of sexual abuse of minors is too serious to be left to investigators like these.
The Secretary of State has done his duty protesting the manner of the raids, but raised a comparison with Russian Bolsheviks, who, like the Spanish anarchists of the Civil War, did terrible and ferocious things.
But one might make the comparison with some evident but forgotten facts about a Belgium which boasts of being one of the most secularized nations on earth - where the marginalization of Catholics has been growing daily.
The state of Belgium was born in 1830 with the free union of Walloons and Flemish - they spoke different languages, and had different traditions and histories, but they were united by their common Catholicism which was solid and fervent.
Thus, they would not support being subjected to being persecuted by Dutch Calvinism. The union lasted until the nation acknowledged that it was Catholic. And now, that one glue has dissolved, and Belgium has become an ungovernable fiction.
Perhaps, operations like Thursday's raids confirm the confusion of a State which for years has been unable to have a credible government, and which, at least among the so-called intelligentsia, appears to be united now only by aversion to the Roman Catholic Church.
Il Foglio has an equally informative but more straightforward commentary, with a rather shocking and very relevant ending which says all there is to say about the despicable hypocrisy of Belgium's secular society:
Belgium hardly 'exists' anymore
but what there is of it is certainly
most efficient in hunting priests down!
Editorial
Translated from
June 27, 2010
BRUSSELS - In Belgium - a country without a nation, eternally divided between the Flemish and the Francophones, a hybrid of Catholicism and Freemasonry, where Prime Ministers fall every six months and they need months and months to form a government - the Church is undergoing maltreatment 'worthy of the
Da Vinci Code," said Mons. Andre Leonard, Primate of Belgium.
Because of the wave of complaints about sexual abuse against minors by priests, "justice should do its work," Leonard said. "Nonetheless I was stunned that they went as far as to look inside the archbishops' tombs and that all of us bishops were sequestered for more than nine hours".
The Vatican Scretariat of State has expressed 'indignation' for the way the raids were carried out. But Belgium, which is divided on everything else, appears unanimous in hunting down pedophile priests in an operation the authorities have called 'Operation Church'.
On Thursday, all the Belgian bishops were interrogated from morning till early evening by investigating magistrates and their co-workers. Court police aearched the offices of the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels; the home of former Primate, Cardinal Godfried Danneels; and the hedquarters of the lay commission set up by the Belgian Church to investigate all complaints of sexual abuse against priests.
At least one tomb in St. Rombout Cathedral was destroyed when the raiders used a pneumatic drill on it in search of any 'smoking gun': a document, a letter, anything to show the 'delinquent association' or at least the 'complicity' of the Belgian Church in covering up priestly abuses against minors, according to the investigating judge, Wim de Troy. One source reportedly informed the court of a secret hiding place in the Archbishop's Palace.
The police left with 475 files, which were by no means hidden, but about which, according to a previous agreement between the Church ahd the Justice Minister in the previous government, any files pertaining to complaints presented to the Commission on Sexual Abuses, should remain confidential.
Mons. Leonard was named Primate of Belgium following the wave of pedophile 'scandals' widely publicized in other countries, and immediately promised a 'zero tolerance' policy.
In April, the Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, Belgium's longest-serving bishop, resigned after admitting that he had improper relations with a young male parishioner that continued even after he was named bishop.
The former Primate of Belgium, well-known progressivist Cardinal Godfried Danneels, whom like-minded bishops would have elected Pope, was accused of having covered up for Vangheluwe.
Considered 'fundamentalist' by the Belgian media because he opposes, abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage, Mons. Leonard responded to the Vangheluwe case by calling on all possible victims of clerical sex abuse to present their complaints to a commission presided by a layman, Peter Adriaenssens, to whom the then Justice Minister Stefaan de Clerck gave guarantees that he could work independently and confidentially.
Now, after the June 12 elections, De Clerck denies everything, claiming that the procesutors are not 'bound' by that agreement.
"Some magistrates, particularly De Troy", wrote
Le Soir, "have shattered the illusions of the clergy, reminding them that justice for human beings has nothing to do with canon law nor with any privleges claimed by the clergy".
But even the sometimes pro-Catholic
Le Libre Belgique is calling for the prosecutors to 'pursue these cases in depth and to the very end', or else "The Catholic Church in Belgium will remain a prisoner of suspicion".
The same tone from the political class, both Flemish (traditionally Catholic) and Francophone (predominantly Masonic).
"Whoever has committed abuses should be prosecuted and condemned according to Belgian Law", said the outgoing Prime Minister Yves Leterme, a Flemish Christian Democrat. "The investigations prove that Church and State have separate powers in Belgium".
[But no one in the Church questions all that! The investigations are not being questioned at all - just the manner in which the Thursday raids were conducted!]
The case of Mark Dutroux - a pedophile scandal [not involving priests] that shook Belgium in the mid-1990s - partly explains the phobia for pedophile priests. For some observers, the present 'hounding' of the Church is a way for the Belgian political class and courts to clean their consciences about the Dutroux case.
Initial investigations had uncovered a pedophile network that involved high-ranking personages in the country - and then came to a sudden stop when it appeared to touch even the man who is now King Albert II... And very quickly, the Belgian establishment transformed the investigating judges and the victims from heroes into megalomaniacs who should not be given any credence at all!
Do not forget Belgium is the country whose Parliament passed a resolution condemning Benedict XVI because of what he said about condoms and AIDS last year! St.Damien of Molokai, invoke good sense and Christian enlightenment for your compatriots!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 28/06/2010 12:47]