The Church in Belgium is in crisis in the wake of a recent sexual abuse scandal involving a bishop and a renowned cardinal. It has led to bishops questioning the role of celibacy and criticizing the Vatican while admitting they are afraid of lawsuits if they apologize. All of this has raised questions about an episcopal culture that still seems “not to get it.”

Until recently, Belgium had seemed relatively unscathed by the reports of sexual abuse. The Commission on Church-related Sexual Abuse Complaints, headed by child psychiatrist Peter Adriaenssens, had been established in 1998 by Cardinal Godfried Danneels and had turned up less than 50 victims. As reported in OSV Newsweekly by Belgian correspondent Mark Van de Voorde, it was in April that Belgium’s longest serving bishop, Bishop Roger Vangheluwe of Bruges, asked his friend, Cardinal Danneels, to intervene in a terrible family scandal. The bishop had sexually abused his nephew from the time he was 5 until he was 18. The abuse had continued even after Vangheluwe had become a bishop.

In the wake of the European scandals, the nephew had asked his uncle to step down, and the uncle had refused. Cardinal Danneels was asked to be an intermediary, but unbeknownst to him, the nephew was taping their April 8 conversation. The cardinal had assumed the family wanted the abuse to be kept quiet, and had recommended forgiveness and an (apparently) private apology by Vangheluwe.

The unhappy nephew took his complaints to the commission charged with investigating abuse cases, leading in turn to the resignation of his uncle. Then he released the tapes to a prominent newspaper, which published them Aug. 27.

Vangheluwe’s resignation as bishop was accepted quickly by the Vatican, and he is no longer allowed to say Mass in public. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., said that any further sanctions, if they were forthcoming, would be the decision of the Pope.

The scandal has devastated the reputation of Cardinal Danneels, who up until now was considered one of the giants of the Church in Europe. As yet unexplained is why, after Cardinal Danneels met with the nephew he had not notified Vatican authorities as Church policy demands. The cardinal’s encounter with the nephew took place after the scandals in Ireland, Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and after Pope Benedict’s letter to the Catholics of Ireland, in which he singled out bishops for their failure to respond to the abuse crisis.

Church law makes it clear that clergy abuse cases must be referred to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Since that explosive incident, almost 500 victims have contacted the Adriaenssens Commission, which on Sept. 10 released a 200-page report into the abuse scandal.

In June, following the revelations about Bishop Vangheluwe and the increase in victims contacting the commission, Belgian authorities had made an unprecedented raid on the offices of the Adriaenssens Commission, confiscating the files of those who had reported abuse, detaining all of the Belgian bishops and opening the graves of two cardinals in a search for documents.

That raid was declared illegal by a Belgian court in September.

Belgian bishops have been weighing in on the crisis, but this too has become a source of division.

Bishop Guy Harpigny tried to explain that it was a fear of financial liability that kept the bishops from apologizing for the abuse cases.

"If we say ‘mea culpa,’ then we are morally responsible, legally responsible, and then people come wanting money,” said the bishop of Tournai, the spokesman for the Belgian bishops on abuse issues. Bishop Harpigny in turn blamed the Vatican for not laicizing Bishop Vangheluwe. “I would prefer a trial by the church authorities. This would be more honest. But any signal would be a good one. Vangheluwe has chosen his own punishment and the Vatican does nothing.”

Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard of Mechelen-Brussels, has said that he expects Pope Benedict to issue a letter to the Belgian Catholics, similar to the letter he wrote to the Irish Catholics earlier this year.

Other Belgian bishops, such as Jozef de Kesel, Vangheluwe’s successor in Bruges, have suggested the church should examine the policy on priestly celibacy in the wake of the scandal. This was brushed aside by Archbishop Léonard who rejected any connection between celibacy for priests and the sex abuse scandal. He declared earlier this month, “If you were to reason that way, you could conclude that marriage should be banned because the majority of (abuse) cases occur within family settings.”