In an unusually frank comment piece, Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner, refers to a notorious scandal in Belgium's Catholic Church in his call for "zero tolerance" of abusers.
Hammarberg writes: "A former Belgian bishop recently trivialised his sexual abuse of two of his nephews by insisting he was not a paedo-criminal. During a television interview he brushed aside several years of sexual abuse of a dependent child as "a small relationship."
According to the Commissioner, "the statements by the bishop provoked wide condemnation and rage. When the bishop first admitted his acts about a year ago hundreds of persons came forward claiming they had been victims of sexual abuse by priests within the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium."
The man at the heart of the furore is a certain Roger Vangheluwe, the former bishop of Bruges.
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