Even 48 hours after Bishop Johan Bonny reported that his former colleague Roger Vangheluwe ‘sent a letter’ to the Vatican, it remains unclear what it contains. “It could be that he expresses his doubts in the letter and lets the Pope decide on his behalf,” says Vatican watcher Tom Zwaenepoel.
“We hope that he asks the Pope the right question,” Bishop Johan Bonny said on Friday during a hastily organized press moment. He explained that he had visited the Bruges bishop, who resigned in 2010, earlier that week with two other bishops in his hiding place, St. Peter’s Abbey in Solesmes, France. During the interview, Roger Vangheluwe (86) was told about the impact of the Canvas program Godforsaken in Flanders in recent weeks. In response to a later email from Bonny, Vangheluwe indicated that he had “already sent” his letter to the Vatican.
But what it says remains unclear. “It could be that he expresses his doubts in the letter,” says Vatican expert Tom Zwaenepoel. “That he places his fate in the hands of the Pope and asks him to decide on his behalf. It may also be that he requests the Pope himself to be laicized. But from what I read and saw, I’m more inclined to infer it’s the former. That he says: ‘What should I do? Just decide for me, and I will do what you ask me.’”
German precedent
Laicization amounts to desecration. Vangheluwe would thus become an “ordinary citizen” again, and immediately be free to go wherever he wants. He would be only the second high-ranking cleric to ever have this happen, after the American bishop and ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2019. According to Bonny, Vangheluwe indicated during the interview that he would prefer to stay in the abbey in Solesmes. The clergyman lives in total seclusion and almost never leaves the abbey.
This week, the Belgian bishops’ conference sent a letter to Rome with the plea that Vangheluwe’s letter “not be ignored”. That plea is supported by the apostolic nuncio Franco Coppola, the pope’s representative in Belgium. “I think they want to send the signal to Rome that the church in Belgium is on fire, which of course is the case,” says Zwaenepoel, author of the book Against the flow Pope Francis in 10 years. “It must be made clear that the pope’s response will determine whether there is still respect for the church in Belgium or not.”
“People now expect 100 percent transparency and action, but I think a decision from the Pope can at least take several months. This week of all days there will be a synod on synodality in the Vatican. That is one of the highlights of Francis’ papacy. Synodality is about: back to basics. The Pope wants to hear the voices of lay people much more and evolve towards a listening church. In addition, similar requests have also been made from other countries, including against German Cardinal Woelki. In that case, as Pope of Distinction and as a Jesuit, he rather adopted an attitude of: calmly considering everything and taking his time.”
Since last year, a judicial investigation into lying under oath has been ongoing against Cardinal Woelki. The clergyman is said to have covered up reports of sexual abuse by clergy for years. When it became known in August 2022 that he had not only withheld files, but also hired a PR agency for communication advice about this, 50 clergy left the diocese of Cologne. Like Vangheluwe, Woelki had previously written “a letter” to the Pope. What it said is just as much of a mystery. The letter reached the Vatican in March 2022. Since then, Catholic Germany has been waiting.
‘Diversionary maneuver’
According to Zwaenepoel, it cannot be concluded that the Pope does not care. “The question is rather whether he has already seen Vangheluwe’s letter,” he emphasizes. “What is also going on is that Pope Francis is accused of subjectivity within the Vatican by prelates, bishops and monsignors. If you take these types of measures, comparisons are immediately made with other files. Francis is the first pope to openly say that the problem of sexual abuse is something for which the church structure is responsible, not secularization. He is also the first pope to advocate embracing modernity and stating that worldly law also applies to clergy, just as it does to gymnastics teachers.”
The question is how many victims will still be awake at night in 2023 because of Roger Vangheluwe’s ecclesiastical status. “None,” guesses Lieve Halsberghe of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). “This is one big diversionary maneuver. This comes from their scripts, which also state, for example, that when people talked about this in 2000, it was about ‘facts in the 1950s’. Today it is ‘facts from the 80s’. There are plenty of cases that show that sexual abuse in the church still occurs today. And it is covered up.”
“Roger Vangheluwe is now the one who is being sacrificed, while no new facts about him have come to light in the past thirteen years. There was nothing to stop the bishops from doing what they are doing today.”
