NETHERLANDS
Irish Times
Peter Cluskey
It was probably the worst-kept secret behind the closed doors of the Dutch Catholic Church: that the late Johannes Gijsen, the conservative bishop chosen to roll back the reforms of the 1960s, was a child molester – as he is now finally being described.
It is precisely because it was such a badly kept secret that last weekend’s brief and grudging admission by the church authorities that allegations against Gijsen were “well-founded” has caused as much anger as relief among victims of clerical sex abuse in the Netherlands.
As recently as 2011, Gijsen, formerly bishop of Roermond in the Catholic south of the country, not only denied one of the main accusations against him – that he had forced a young boy under his control to perform oral sex – but denied ever having met his victim.
There were many who undoubtedly knew he was lying. But his accusers say that, even in retirement, he wielded such a malign power that no one in the church was willing to stand up to him – right up until the day he died last year aged 80.
Rooting out ‘evil’
Supporters of Pope Francis may claim that the path to this belated “outing” was paved by the pontiff’s admission last Friday that the church must do more to root out “all the evil” done by criminal clergy. But the victims’ retort is blunt: Gijsen went to his grave unpunished, unashamed and utterly unrepentant.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.