Roger Vangheluwe, accused of pedophilia, had lived in seclusion since 2010 in a French abbey. New facts were transmitted to Rome leading the pope to grant the request of the Belgian bishops who repeatedly asked that he be sanctioned.
1 min
With our correspondent in Rome, Eric Senanque
Roger Vanglehuwe is no longer bishop or priest. So decided the Pope Francis. For many years, pressure had been strong on Rome, due to the sulphurous past of the former bishop of Bruges. He had notably sexually assaulted one of his nephews and was forced to resign in 2010. The prelate had since lived in retirement at the abbey of Solesmes, in the west of France, but kept his attributes and his salary , paid by the Belgian State.
In recent months, a new file incriminating the pedophile bishop was transmitted to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican containing the testimony of a new victim. On March 3, the dicastery transmitted the file to the Pope proposing to reduce Roger Vanglehuwe to a lay state.
The Belgian bishops welcomed the decision and paid tribute to the victims of the attacker who had the courage to testify. The reduction to the lay state of a bishop is rare in the Church. The one concerning the former head of the diocese of Bruges comes as Pope Francis himself announced an upcoming trip to Belgium in September. A visit which risked being poisoned by this cumbersome file.