Church offers apology as report says thousands of Dutch children have
suffered sexual abuse in Catholic institutions
Thousands of children suffered sexualabuse in Dutch Catholic
institutions, and church officials failed to adequately
address the abuse or help the victims, according to a long-awaited
investigation.
The report, released on Friday, by an independent commission said
Catholic officials failed to tackle the widespread abuse "to prevent
scandals".
It said the suspected number of abusevictims who spent some of their
youth in church institutions was likely somewhere between 10,000 and
20,000, according to a summary of the report.
The commission said it received some 1,800 complaints of abuse at
Catholicschools, seminaries and orphanages and that the institutions
suffered from "a failure of oversight".
It estimated that one in 10 Dutch Catholic children suffered some form
of abuse since 1945, including rape. That figure doubles to one in
five children for those who were in the care of Catholic institutions
such as orphanages, boarding schools and seminaries.
Most cases were of mild to moderateabuse, such as touching, but it
estimated "several thousand" instances of rape.
The findings appear to show that abuse was more widespread in the
Netherlands even than in Ireland.
The commission was set up last year under the leadership of Wim
Deetman,a former government minister, to investigate allegations of
abuse dating from 1945.
The investigation was commissioned by two Catholic bodies, the
Conference of Bishops and the DutchReligious Conference, in 2010 after
cases surfaced involving paedophile priests in the Netherlands,
Belgium, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Canada andthe United States.
Abuse by Catholic priests, laymen and laywomen was systematically
covered up by the church to protect its reputation, the commission
said, adding that the church was guilty of"inadequate supervision"
and"inadequate action".
"The Catholic Church had a culture of not airing its dirty laundry,"
Deetman told reporters.
Psalms 81:12-So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust : and they walked in
their own counsels
John 8:44 - Ye are of your father the devil, and the lust s of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth,
because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. Romans 1:24
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust s of
their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust s of
their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
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