Squeal? The bishops ought to be grateful the police weren't kicking in heads as well as kicking in doors. In April Cardinal Danneels' close friend, Monsignor Roger Vangheluwe, the Bishop of Bruges, admitted to having molested children for years, both before and after he became a bishop. In a country which has never recovered from the shock and shame of the Dutroux case, in which legal fumbling -- and perhaps corruption -- by police and prosecutors left a murderous, torturing paedophile loose for years to imprison and rape young girls, patience has run out. Now increasing evidence of decades of rape and sodomy of children by Belgian's priests has pushed the law enforcement authorities to act with the kind of determination they should have used against Dutroux and his collaborators. The arrogance of the bishops in dealing with years of worried by parents makes this action all the more satisfying. In the current issue of the on-line Brussels Journal, a member of the federal parliament, Dr Alexandra Colen, writes about her struggles, and struggles by other parents, to have a Church catechism stinking of paedophile propaganda withdrawn from Catholic schools. Included were drawings such as the one above, in which a naked baby girl is saying: 'Stroking my p**sy feels groovy,' and 'I like to take my knickers off with friends' and 'I want to be in the room when Mum and Dad have sex.' Another drawing shows a naked little boy and girl that are 'playing doctor' and the little boy is saying, 'Look, my willy is big.' Another drawing shows three pairs of parents. Those with the 'correct' attitude -- and remember, this meant to be an official handbook of Church teaching -- reply, ' Yes feeling and stroking those little places is good fun.' Dr Colen discovered this catechism among the school books of her 13-year old daughter in 1997. Dr Colen wrote to Cardinal Danneels, who was then still in office as head of Belgium's Catholics, and said: 'When I see this drawing and its message, I get the distinct impression that this catechism textbook is designed intentionally to make 13 and 14 year olds believe that toddlers enjoy genital stimulation.' 'In this way one breeds paedophiles that sincerely believe that children actually think that what they are doing to them is "groovy," while the opposite it the case.' She demanded the Church withdraw the book. Her protests, and protests by other parents, were dismissed by the Cardinal. As she explains the Brussels Journal: 'Today this case, that dates from 12 years ago, assumes a new and ominous significance. Especially now that I know that Mgr Roger Vangheluwe, the paedophile child-molesting Bishop of Bruges, was the supervising bishop of both institutions -- the Catholic University of Leuven and the Seminary of Bruges -- whence came the editors in chief of this perverted "catechism" textbook.' 'Monsignor Vangheluwe not only entertained paedophile ideas, but also practised them on his 11-year old nephew.' After Dr Colen started her campaign against such paedophile propaganda in schools, other parents came forward with accounts of children in Catholic schools being required to watch videos showing techniques of masturbation and copulation. When hundreds of parents gathered in protest in from of the Cardinal's residence, he refused to meet them. Other protests demanded an investigation into these books and videos in the schools. The investigation was refused. When parents demanded to meet the Papal Nuncio, the Pope's ambassador in Belgium, he refused to meet them. Instead he alerted the police who moved in to guard his residence from the parents with water cannon. Meanwhile, some of Cardinal Danneels' friends -- was his good friend the paedophile Bishop of Bruges among them? -- started a press campaign against Dr Colen, claiming she was 'pestering the bishops'. Finally the Cardinal's official spokesman rang her and insisted she had to 'be obedient' to the bishops. But word of Dr Colen's campaign spread out to the Church across the world, and she received support from as far away as New Zealand. Letters of support for her arrived at the Vatican. Last February, the Belgian newspaper De Standaard wrote that these letters 'enhanced Rome's perception of the weak church leadership in Belgium.' The liberal Cardinal Danneels was replaced by Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard. Rome dropped him into the job in the hope he could restore the Church in Belgium. Léonard has already urged victims to take their cases to court. Which is a start. But squealing about a perfectly correct police raid is not. The bishops need to shut up and just hand over the documents. The International Herald Tribune appeared shocked, really shocked, to find out that the EU had been paying selected journalists to travel to Strasbourg to cover the dull and dangerous activities of the parliament. The paper gasped that such 'payments spark questions on free-press principles.' Bless their innocent little American hearts. Research published by Open Europe in December 2008 showed that the annual propaganda budget for the EU was at least €2.8bn (£2.3bn at today's exchange rate). Did the Herald Trib really imagine none of it was sloshing over into the expense accounts of EU-friendly journalists? And did they really imagine no European journalists would take such money? Remember, there are Continental journalists here in Brussels who submit to licensing from their home governments -- in other words, submit to the practise of politicians deciding who is free to practise as a reporter and who isn't. Once a journalist will submit to that, being paid by politicians is just one more little step. Now the European Commission intends to expand the system. They plan to start using taxpayers' money to make the same kind of payments to journalists and television crews travelling abroad with José Manuel Barroso, the commission president, and other commissioners. According to a letter dated June 21st and written by Viviane Reding, a vice-president of the commission, to Barroso, and seen by an on-line journal, Euractiv (which itself has a history of taking money from the European Commission), Mrs Reding intends that the commission 'take in charge some of the costs of journalists travelling with you [Barroso] and fellow commissioners.' Mrs Reding also plans that two photographers be hired to stay on permanent call for Barroso. This is meant to ensure the commission president has a 24-hour coverage. A television crew will also travel with him. According to Euractiv, the service will also be extended to commissioners on 'media-sensitive missions, like the planned visit of Olli Rehn [economic commissioner] to Athens in the coming weeks.' All this is going to make Barroso's entourage very crowded, what with having his personal photographer and personal television crew and personal pet journalists in tow, since apparently he will also have a team of four new speech writers going along, too. The commission president is going to have such a fat doughnut around him that real journalists won't be able to get through. Though obviously that's the point.
28 June 2010 12:47 PM
Belgian prelate perverts and their catechism kiddie porn
Paying for propaganda: how the European Commission plans to buy journalists
Sunday, 4 July 2010
The Vatican and the Belgian Catholic hierarchy are squealing like stuck pigs over the police raid last week on the home of the former head of Belgium's eight million Catholics. The cops seized a personal computer and documents belonging to Cardinal Godfried Danneels. Police also raided the archdiocesan palace near Brussels, and the crypt of the cathedral at Mechelen.They confiscated 450 files containing reports of paedophile offences by members of clergy.
One had to smile back in 2006 when the international American press tumbled onto the system of payments the European Parliament had been making to friendly journalists. They expressed surprise that this racket was going on.
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