By Cherice Chen
Taiwan News, Staff Writer
Vatican Pope Latin America
Associated Press (2011-12-13 06:02:27)
Pope Benedict XVI waves as he leaves at the end of a mass for Latin America, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Monday, Dec. 12, 2011.
As many as 20,000 children endured sexual abuse at Dutch Catholic institutions over the past 65 years, and church officials failed to adequately address it or help the victims, according to a long-awaited investigative report released Friday.
The findings detailed some of the most widespread abuse linked to the Roman Catholic Church, which has been under fire for years over abuse allegations in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.
The commission, which began work in August 2010, conducted a survey of 34,000 people; the report estimated that 1 in 10 Dutch children suffered some form of sexual abuse — a figure that rose to 1 in 5 among children who spent part of their youth in an institution such as a boarding school or children’s home, whether Catholic or not.
The number of victims who suffered abuse in church institutions likely lies somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000, according to the probe, which went back as far as 1945.
Most of the cases involved mild to moderate abuse, such as touching, but the report estimated there were “several thousand” instances of rape.
“Sexual abuse of minors,” it said bluntly, “occurs widely in Dutch society.”
Inflictors and Victims
The findings prompted the archbishop of Utrecht, Wim Eijk, to apologize to victims on behalf of the Dutch church, saying the report “fills us with shame and sorrow.”
Eijk said the victims in the Netherlands would be compensated an amount of $6,500 (euro 5,000) to a maximum of $130,000 (euro 100,000) depending on the nature of the abuse.
The commission behind the investigation was set up last year by the Catholic Church under the leadership of a former government minister, Wim Deetman, who said there could be no doubt church leaders knew of the problem.
“The idea that people did not know there was a risk ... is untenable,” he told a news conference.
Deetman said abuse continued in part because bishops and religious orders sometimes worked autonomously to deal with the abuse and “did not hang out their dirty laundry.”
The Dutch probe followed allegations of repeated incidents of abuse at one cloister that spread to claims from Catholic institutions across the country.
Bert Smeets, an abuse victim, said the report did not go far enough in investigating and outlining in precise detail exactly what happened.
“What was happening was sexual abuse, violence, spiritual terror, and that should have been investigated,” Smeets told The Associated Press. “It remains vague. All sorts of things happened, but nobody knows exactly what or by whom. This way they avoid responsibility.”
Nearly one third of the Netherlands’ 16 million people identify themselves as Catholic, making it the largest religion in the country, according to the Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics for 2008.
The latest findings add to the growing evidence of widespread clergy abuse of children documented in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Belgium and other countries, forcing Pope Benedict XVI to apologize to victims whose trauma was often hidden by church cover-ups.
In September, abuse victims and human rights lawyers, upset that no high-ranking church officials have yet to be prosecuted, filed a complaint in the United States urging the International Criminal Court to investigate the pope and top Vatican officials for possible crimes against humanity.
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