BELGIUM - Panel to probe sex-abuse shuts down

BRUSSELS (AP):

A panel appointed by the Catholic church to investigate clerical sex abuse in Belgium is shutting down, after police seized all its files during a raid last week, the group's chairman said yesterday.

Peter Adriaenssens, a child psychiatrist who chaired the panel, said authorities betrayed the trust of nearly 500 victims who had made complaints over the past two months to the church panel and blamed state prosecutors for pursuing victims too traumatised to speak to police.

"We were bait," he said.

The panel was shutting because it had no files to work from, Adriaenssens said. On June 24, police raided its offices, seized documents and computers from the Belgian archbishop's office and opened a prelate's crypt in a cathedral.

"It is now up to (Belgian) bishops to care for victims and follow-up their complaints," the panel said in a statement.

On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI denounced the raids as "deplorable", his first public comment on the deepening diplomatic rift between Belgium and the Vatican over the police raids.

Adriaenssens linked the raids to a state investigation into a possible cover-up of abuse by the Catholic Church.

Resignation

The Belgian church was rocked by the April 24 resignation of its longest-serving bishop, Roger Vangheluwe, who stepped down after admitting sexually abusing a young boy when former Archbishop Godfried Danneels was in charge.

The revelation came as hundreds of cases of abuse were being reported across Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, exposing cover-ups by bishops and evidence of long-standing Vatican inaction to stop it.

Danneels resigned in January after victims said he had not responded to their complaints.