NETHERLANDS
Fox News
Published April 12, 2014
Associated Press
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – A former Dutch Catholic bishop, who died last year, was guilty of sexual abuse decades ago when he was a chaplain and teacher in the southern Netherlands, his diocese has acknowledged, in the latest abuse scandal to hit the church.
An organization of victims of church abuse, Mea Culpa, welcomed the statement Saturday as vindicating a fight for justice by victims, both boys at the time of the abuse.
The Diocese of Roermond said in a statement issued late Friday that a church complaints commission had ruled that the late Bishop Jo Gijsen was found to have committed the abuse.
The current Roermond bishop, Frans Wiertz, said in a written statement he “accepted the advice of the complaints commission to declare the allegations well-founded.”
He said he “regretted the abuse and the victims’ suffering” and had apologized to them.
Bert Smeets of Mea Culpa called the ruling “a slap in the face for the Dutch Roman Catholic Church.”
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