Those investigating child sex abuse within the Dutch Roman Catholic Church are facing an enormous job which is increasing by the day. Complaints are flooding in from around the country following initial revelations made by Radio Netherlands Worldwide and the NRC Handelsblad newspaper.
The first reports of abuse came from a boarding school in the eastern town of 's-Heerenberg - now allegations have been made involving Roman Catholic institutions across the Netherlands.
One of these was an expensive boarding school for the children of diplomats and the wealthy at Eikenburg near the southern city of Eindhoven.
Robert Chesal reports:
Dolf was ten years old when he was abused the first time at the Eikenburg boarding school. It happened shortly after he arrived and he says the perpetrator was his group leader, a Roman Catholic brother.
"After a few weeks, I was woken up one night. The brother took me out of the dormitory. I had to get down on my knees and he put 15 blankets over me. I sat there sweating for 45 minutes. Then I had to satisfy him. That happened was every week for a year. I had to do it in every way possible. I was a child and I didn't know what I was doing."
Military precision
Eikenburg, located in beautiful woods near Eindhoven was one of the most expensive boarding schools in the Netherlands. Dolf, now 63, attended the school from late 1956 until 1958. He describes the brother as a large, coarse and aggressive man who demanded military precision from the boys.
He used to rip the blankets from the beds to make sure that the sheets had been tucked in properly and meted out the same kind of terrifying discipline in the dining room.
Brothers of Charity
The Brothers of Charity taught around 350 students in the boarding school’s 19th-century chapel and annexes. The order, which has branches throughout the world, is devoted to helping the poor, caring for the ill and to Christian charity.
However, the brothers enforced an extremely strict regime for the boys at Eikenburg. The instructors would hand out blue cards to boys who misbehaved, which meant they could not visit their home at the weekend. Dolf says the brother exploited the situation. "He tried to rape me. He was so big and strong. His hands were all over my face".
Letters censored
Since his parents were abroad, Dolf usually visited relatives during the weekend. His father was a diplomat. He was lonely, did not feel safe and was homesick. “My parents were far away. I had nobody to turn to.” Because the brothers checked all mail it was not possible to mention the abuse in a letter.
The Brothers of Charity’s regional superior, Ton van Heugten (74) at first refused to answer questions about the accusations. “I know about it. But I am not going to discuss it.” When asked about Dolf’s version of events. “I know about it. But I don’t know if something actually happened.”
Van Heugten says that the brother in question had been confined to a psychiatric institution. “There they diagnosed him as needing psychiatric care.” There was never an investigation into whether any of the boys had been a victim of possible acts by the brother.
An investigation by Radio Netherlands Worldwide and NRC Handelsblad into child abuse at boarding schools and seminaries reveals that a great deal of hidden suffering took place near the shady lanes of the Eikenburg boarding school. Of the more than one hundred cases investigated during the past two weeks, eleven took place in one school alone – Eikenburg.
Eleven former pupils describe how they and others were repeatedly abused and beaten. The events described allegedly took place between 1956 and 1983. The former pupils accuse nine Catholic brothers and one lay brother. More than fifty brothers worked at the boarding school on average.
Physical violence
Not all the pupils came from wealthy families. Henk Overdevest and his two brothers, sons of a bulb grower from North Holland, attended Eikenburg in 1968. Henk says his mother was emotionally unstable and did not have the ability to deal with her children, whom she often beat. Due to the dangerous situation at home he was sent to Eikenburg to attend the sixth grade of elementary school.
The troubles started immediately after his arrival. The group of new pupils was walking up the steps when one of the boys said something cheeky. One of the brothers “gave him a really hard blow to his head. The boy fell down the stone steps and landed with a smack on the pavement. Nobody helped him. The boy picked himself up. He was crying really hard of course.”
Intimidation
The cruelty was allegedly of a sexual nature as well. The boys who stayed during the weekend were the ones who experienced the alleged abuse most often.
Mr Overdevest: “We were playing billiards one Saturday afternoon. A boy was about to play a shot with his cue when the same brother walked up behind him. He pressed the boy against the billiard table and began to wildly rub against him.” Nobody else did anything because they were afraid of reprisals.
Henk befriended one of the supervisors, a lay brother of around 19 years of age. The supervisor invited Henk to his room to talk. “We chatted until late in the evening, with the radio on, and he gave me a sweet glass of liqueur.” The lay brother was preparing to make a sexual advance.
“At night I was asleep in bed and I woke up. Someone was touching my penis. I pushed him away.”
The supervisor tried it again another time, but this time more aggressively. Henk pushed him away.
“A short time later I heard a boy with a loud voice shouting somewhere else in the dormitory, “Shove off. Keep your hands off me!” His parents arrived the next day and the lay brother was fired immediately.”
Dolf and Henk’s accusations are just two examples of a structural pattern. Reports by other former pupils show that it is highly likely that pupils were frequently abused during the 1960s and 70s.
A former pupil who complained to Superior Van Heugten about abuse years ago looks back in anger. “He said that my story could not possibly be true.” Recently the former pupil received a letter from Van Heugten which included the cautious phrase: “We would greatly regret it if an incident had ever occurred at our institution.”
Comfort
Some time before the school closed its doors in 1996, girls were admitted as well. Each pupil had his or her own room. Although the atmosphere was less strict, there were still instances of abuse. A woman (42) from Deurne, near Eindhoven, says a brother began to abuse her in 1980, when she was 13, until 1983. Because she is married and has two children she wants to remain anonymous. The brother said he wanted to comfort her because she was homesick. However, they ended up having sex.
When her father found out and threatened to call the police the man was transferred to another boarding school run by the Brothers of Charity, St Jozef in Roermond. Today he is one of the four members of the board of the Brothers of Charity in the Netherlands.
Confessed
The Brothers of Charity still reside in Eikenburg. Regional father superior Van Heugten at first refused to discuss the accusation. However, in a second telephone conversation he admitted that the board member “had something to do with that girl”. He says the brother “sat here crying and confessed”.
The first Roman Catholic institution to face an investigation into charges of sexual abuse was the Don Rua monastery in ‘s-Heerenberg. Now it seems that widespread abuse occurred at the Eikenberg boarding school as well. In view of the many complaints which are being sent to Hulp & Recht (Help & Justice), a Roman Catholic organisation dedicated to fighting sexual abuse, more institutions will probably follow. The Netherlands can now join the growing number of countries where past cases of widespread sexual abuse at religious institutions are coming into the limelight after having long been ignored.
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They need to prosecute to these guys to the max. I cannot believe that this abuse is happening. This is so wrong to happen.
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There are many preditors in Austria: Clergy, private, mafia. They are known, however, the system protects them. Instead of having a fair trial, the survivors are being revictimized again and again and again.
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To me the leadership of the catholic church which includes the pope, cardinals and bishops is corrupt even by its own standards. Anyone who supports such an institution is also morally responsible for what the leadership has done. Either reform this church or stop giving it your money.
Reasons why priest pedophilia is eternal: John Paul II the Great “Saint”, “The Conscience” of the ‘Age of Benedict XVI’, “Holy Father” Marcial Maciel, see full article in the John Paul II MIllstone
http://jp2m.blogspot.com
http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2010/06/reasons-why-priest-pedophilia-is.html
Oh yes, because of her reputation for being the model of holiness, the Church must be castigated for these crimes. But it is not alone. Groups such as the Boy Scouts, boys academies, Protestant youth care institutions, government youth correctional institutions, and many others have their share of histories of abuse to admit and have need to be brought to judgement. Some proportionality must be shown in the public press concerning this issue, and not focus blame on the easy target with the most money to pay out and the most shame to bear.
All religious are ancient monuments to superstitions, ignorance, ferocity and instinctual desires. Modern religions are only ancient follies rejuvenated.
When I entered both the religious life and the priesthood, I entered this ministry because God called me to serve the Church in this vocation. I DID NOT ENTER THE VOCATION TO HAVE SEX WITH ANYONE
And I suppose that is and has always been the motive of serious priests and religious in the Catholic Church. The serious religious obligations to observe Chastisty and celebacy were made very, very clear by my superiors. We were told plainly to discern clearly that we intended to observe this evangelical
virtue of Chastity, and if we ever participated in such sexual disfunctions we would be expelled from the Order and if priests, defrocked from the ministry, period!
Now it seems that every priest and every religious is painted with the same disgusting paint brush
and accused or suspected of involving themselves in these antisocial behaviors. Regardless of their
religious belief, if any, we are held up to redicule. If I wear my clerics, or my religious habit in public
we are held to scorn by unscrupulous non believers as being a whole class of sexual deviants.
My clerics and religious habit is a tool, which is a means of grace from God to help me in times of
temptations. After all, we clerics and religious are subjected to temptations just like any human
being, and with God's help and grace, I choose deliberatedly to honor my vows to God, to the
Church, and to people in the community. Not to expect these tempations is just being naieve and immature, emotionally, as well as intellectually.
Thus, I grieve for the victims, and for the church as a whole. But with St Paul, I grieve NOT as those who do not know God. I grieve with Hope. There are clear rules in Pastoral counseling, that if followed will protect both potential victims and their pastoral counselors, both in the secular law, as well as the canons for the Church. Bishops are bound to follow them strictly or be held accountable to the people
of God, whether they are bishops, fellow priests and religious, and most of all to the laity, to whom we are called to serve. It is clear that many of these bishops, priests, or religious failed to follow these norms and have done extensive damage to the hearts and souls of those victims, who were abused
by the predatory nature of sexually disfuction disorders. Their accountability requires that they be removed from office and if necessary be defrocked. Canon Law is clear about this and they know it!
It is the same discipline and accountabiliy for priests, for religious for the sisters and for anyone
who works with youth. If it is clear from competent psychiatric screening that they have some
personality disorders they should not be ordained, nor consecrted as bishop and placed over dioceses
or any other administrative position in the Church. Presently Rome has only 10 investigators
to handle the cases coming in and they are simply overwhealmed. The Pope should substantially
increase this staff to handle the investigations coming to Rome.
In the Gospel of St Matthew ( Chapter 18, vs 6-7) Jesus points this out clearly in a section called tempation. He states: "Whoever causes one of these little ones, who believe in Me to sin, it would have been better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be downed in to the depts of the sea. Woe to the world, because of things can cause sin. Such things must come, but woe to the one through w hom they come." To me Jesus told us that these events shall come and we
should be prepared to recognize this and to deal with this as Christians.
By the way to allow nuns to marry is an oxymoron; they consecrated their lives to Our Lord and thus
are not by their own vows permitted to marry. It is the same with the male religious, the lay brothers
They, too, vow not to marry for the sake of the Kingdom of God. Priests, secular in particular, make
this promise, although there are Catholic traditions that permit these men to marry, according to their right under ancient Canon Law; so one might find that there are three kinds of priests. The single
priest, the religious priest ( or a combination of both vocations) and in some traditions, the married
priest. Perhaps we should return to the model for the priesthood, contained in sacred scriptures
Now how do we correct this grave error of child abuse in the Church? For that fact, how do we correct this sexual disfunction in the secular world, among our other social institutions as well? In the present
face of things, this seems almost impossible. Common sense would appear to rule the day here
Those in authority should not permit the prepretrator to continue to function in ministry or in other
secular professions. They must be removed; there is no other choice, if it is proven beyond a shaddow of a doubt that such acts were committed.
And, I want to point out that priests, religioius, nuns, and sisters, are also made victims in these cases
I know of a Franciscan Priest, a good and holy man, who ran a shelter in NYC. One day, he was arrested, taken to court, and based just on the false testimony of two girls, whose real motives
were to get back at this priest, who enforced the rules of the shelter, this man was convicted
and sent to prison for 30 years in the state of NY. 24 years later, one of the girls, then in prison
and on her death bed, confessed that she made up the whole thing before two witnesses and'
the chaplain sent to her death bed. The case was re-opened and the facts proved then that the priest never committed the act. He spent 24 years in prison for a crime that he did not commit; and do
you have any idea what the other prisoners do to those, found out to be convicted of child molestation
There are hundreds of cases like this, and thank God we now have criminal forensics and a better understnding of personality disorders to guide us in our investigations. No one ever talks about these cases. What about restitution to this man, who was innocent of the crime, for which he was accused?
Since then, I have entered the professional study of psychotherapy and pastoral counseling
I have taught courses on pastor church and the law to help other clergy to avoid these spiritual
emotional and legal land mines, courses that we never got when I was in seminary. I am sorry to say that even bishops were not given these courses as part of their training in the priesthood and now
should take steps to take in order to make the proper righteous and correct steps to protect their
flocks from these predators, within the priesthood and without the priesthood.
There are different religious lives according to their mission and rules. Nuns are women, who take the vow of stability and never leave the convent (in Europe these places recalled monasteries and in some cases the language for this is moncas (especially in spain). Their counterparts, Sisters, are in active
ministry according to their rules and make take different forms of vows, eg perpetual vows versus
Solemn Vows, but in any case they are NOT nuns, They are Sisters. Male religious also live different
lifestyles according to their rule and constitution. There are cloistered monks who never leave their monasteries, unless transferred to different monasterys; and there are Friars, and congregation
priests and lay brothers in all fronts, eg the teaching brothers, the Franciscan nursing brothers
and other different religioius lifestyles, which involve a vow of Chastity This is why I think that it is ridiculous for nuns or sisters to marry. They can not contract either a secular or a religious marriage
due to their vowed status in life. If a sister or a nun desires to marry, she sould take the necessary
steps to have her vows dispensed and leave honorbly from the religious life and return to the lay
state, there to persue a desire to marry. She knows this. The same with religious priests and lay
religious. They also know this!
Lastly, priests, religious, lay religious, and lay persons are called to live lives of holiness, coming out of the secular values of the world for prayer, for other holy acts, for the proper worship in their chapels,
oratories and churches and not incorporate other secular or other pagan religious values as part of their call to come out of the world. This obligation even extends to every Christian and Catholic, who lives
out their faith in the world. Prayer, obedience to the Will of God, and the following of the holy traditions of our faith, the continual study of the catechism, attending Holy Mass and the other
liturgical services provided, setting aside some quality time with their families and for daily
prayer will help restore the Church. God knows that this will take time, but it can be done
Thanks for reading this response. I guess I have some strong opinions about this whole mess
I pray for those, who are assigned or appointed to conduct any investigations over these matters
as well as for those, who must make the proper and correct decisions and to train myself
in the proper use of Pastoral Counseling and the administratioin of our youth programs, which include
the proper police checks, record checks, a good psychiatric interview and other ways that can
farrot out incompetent and dangers from predators, who always seek victims and stay next to
their stash, in this case children, volunerable men and women, to whom the Church is accountable
for its decision.
The real issue behind the abuse of children by priests is the systemic problem of the institution itself. The catholic hierarchy is immersed in secret deliberations and hires the best lawyers to protect its assets in civil and criminal investigations. Is this the activity of a religious organization? The church is corrupt from the top down.
I have been attempting to seek support for my mother and her late brother whom were both abused in the care of the Catholic Church system my uncle both sexually and physically and my mother pysically also having her name changed.
This revelation came to a fore 12 years ago when she became mentally ill and eventually she revealed how she had been abused whilst in the care of the Catholic Care in Holland.
i believe that there are many more whom are of a similar agewhom have experienced this torment in their young lives and would be happy to join any group who may bring some resolution to this act of neglect and Abuse.
Catholic future history:
In 300 years the Roman Catholic Church will refer to these times as one in which the church was falsely and malignantly attacked by atheists, non-believers, government and Satanic enemies of Christianity.
"Against a massive effort to discredit the piety and chasteness of the clergy with accusations of heinous crimes, the church and her followers fought a protracted battle against this evil... eventually triumphing in the name of Jesus and to the greater glory of the mother church."
I assure you that this will come to pass...this has always been the strategy of the criminal enterprise called Catholicism.
May the light of knowledge shine on your path,
May your path lead to TRUTH,
and the LIE die.
I am a practising Catholic. The sexual and physical abuse by Priests disgusts and sickens me, the men and women who commited these crimes are sick individuals who I am sure would be twisted (maybe slightly less so?) even if they weren't part of the church clergy. My own father went to a secular school here in Australia and although he has no stories of sexual abuse there are many tales of absolute physical abuse and intimidation by teachers. So it does permeate other areas of society too.
As far as my own life is concerened, I have experienced nothing but kindness and genorosity throughout my school life and now adulthood by the leaders of my church. This makes the scandals even harder for me to stomach... while there are so many good people doing good, thankless work it takes a few to misuse the trust given to them to unravel the gains made. Bisops, Archbisops, Cardinals and even the Pope need to stand up and take note of this dark history swept under the carpet and never let it happen again. Rogue Priests, Brothers and lay people need to be "outed" and removed, then charged.
I know within the Australian Catholic church steps have already been taken towards healing and prevention. Prevention is perhaps acheivable, healing will be much, much harder but I hope it's possible. It needs to be, the message the Catholic Church has is one of hope, compassion and so much more and unfortunately much of that becomes lost amongst the scandals and peoples perception of an overblown dogma.
The evil church. that says it all
You will be judged by the ocmpany you keep. And that includes the church to which you belong
Mr. James is quite right. There is no one in the Catholic clergy that can claim they had no knowledge of sexual irregularities in their service. Now that this horrendous, ugly manifestation of ultimate evil has been exposed, anyone that continues to associate with the Catholic Church is equally guilty.
Sadly true, Vera! But, guess how can the priests and nuns stay untouched from this all in a society where sex is not a taboo...Though their(Catholic) acts are unpardonable and deserve strictest punishment. Still, the society should introspect as these priests and nuns come from the society, from their own society, they aren't aliens..
When is the Catholic Church going to get away from this lunatic custom that priests and nuns should not marry. These people have emotions like the rest of us. However, this does in no way excuse what has been going on for so long.
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