Vatican II peritus, potential Nobel Peace Prize winner, admits abuse

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 CatholicCulture.org 

29 December 2010

Father François Houtart, an 85-year-old Belgian activist priest who served as a peritus at the Second Vatican Council, has admitted twice abusing his cousin in 1970. His cousin was then an eight-year-old boy.

The grandson of a Belgian prime minister and eldest of 14 children, Houtart participated in the resistance against Nazi occupation as a teenager during World War II.

Ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Malines-Brussels in 1949, Houtart taught at the Catholic University of Louvain from 1958 to 1990. As a peritus at Vatican II, he assisted Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens and served as secretary of the subcommission that drafted the introduction to Gaudium et Spes, the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world.

In awarding Houtart the Madanjeet Singh Prize in 2009, UNESCO noted:

François Houtart (Belgium) received the award for his life-long commitment to world peace, intercultural dialogue, human rights and the promotion of tolerance, and in recognition of his outstanding eff orts to advance the cause of social justice in the world. He is ardent promoter of North-South cooperation and the founder of the Tri-Continental Centre (CETRI), a non-governmental organization renowned for its work on development issues and in the International Council of the World Social Forum. Known throughout his life as a defender of human rights, he has contributed significantly to the advancement of the inter-faith and inter-cultural dialogue. As a noted sociologist of religions and theology, he has authored numerous publications and given lectures in over 100 universities around the world.

An international petition drive calling upon the Nobel Prize committee to award Houtart the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 has attracted thousands of signatures from 74 nations. In the midst of this effort, the sister of the abuse victim lodged a complaint with Church officials in Belgium, and the priest admitted the abuse.

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Belgian activist priest admits sexual abuse

google.com

29 December 2010

(AP) – 5 hours ago

BRUSSELS (AP) — A Belgian priest has confessed to a child sex-abuse accusation that came to light during a campaign to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work fighting globalization’s impact on developing countries.

The confession was published in a Belgian newspaper Wednesday and confirmed by the organization the priest founded, deepening a sex-abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in the country. After a spate of accusations this year, the church in September published the harrowing accounts of more than 100 victims of clerical sex abuse, some as young as 2 when they were assaulted.

In October, after supporters of 85-year-old Francois Houtart began working to nominate him for the Nobel, a woman contacted the nonprofit organization he founded and said the priest had abused her brother 40 years ago, according to its director, Bernard Duterme.

Houtart resigned the next month from the board of Cetri, which publishes reports critical of developed nations’ actions in the Third World, Duterme said.

Houtart told the newspaper Le Soir that he twice touched “the intimate parts” of his cousin, an incident he called “inconsiderate and irresponsible.”

In her e-mail to Cetri and the committee to nominate Houtart for the Nobel Prize, the victim’s sister also pointed to her testimony in the church’s report, Duterme said.

There, she details the abuse of her brother, which she describes as “rape,” by an unnamed priest.

She says the priest, who was a friend of her father, entered her brother’s room twice “to rape him.” ”Before the third time, my brother went to tell his parents, who kept him in their room,” she is quoted as saying in the report.

The priest isn’t named in the report.

Houtart is in Ecuador and didn’t immediately respond to phone calls and e-mail Wednesday, but he told Le Soir that he entered the boy’s room, when he was staying with the boy’s parents close to Liege, in eastern Belgium.

“Walking through the room of one of the family’s boys, I effectively touched his intimate parts twice, which woke him up and frightened him,” Houtart is quoted as saying.

The committee in November ended its campaign to nominate Houtart for the 2011 Nobel Prize, saying the priest had requested its termination because “his age and his personal projects would not allow him to fully assume the role requested in such circumstances.”

In a statement, the committee said “thousands of people” in 74 countries had participated in the signature campaign, recognizing Houtart’s role in the social justice and antiglobalization movement.

It has been a traumatic year for the Catholic Church in Belgium, beginning in April with the resignation of the Bishop of Bruges Roger Vangheluwe. Vangheluwe admitted to having sexually abused a nephew for years when he was a priest and a bishop.

In June, authorities seized hundreds of case files from a church and used power tools to open a prelate’s crypt in Mechlin’s St. Rumbold Cathedral, seeking evidence. The raid was condemned by the Vatican and later ruled excessive by a Belgian court.

However, the investigation into the abuse continued and in September the Catholic Church published an almost 200-page report detailing the testimonies of 124 victims of abuse by Catholic clergy over decades.

In the church’s report, the victim’s sister says her father went to talk to the priest about the incident a few days later and asked him to apologize, but the priest declined and “told my father that there wasn’t anything more normal.” Her father then cut off all contact with Houtart, the woman says.

In his letter to Le Soir, Houtart says he was “personally perturbed” by the incident, “since I was conscious of the contradiction it represented with my Christian faith and my function as a priest.”

He says the boy’s parents suggested he get in touch with a professor in Liege, who advised him to stay in the priesthood and concentrate on his work.

Francois Polet, a researcher at Cetri, said the organization decided not to go public with the reason for Houtart’s resignation from the board at the victim’s sister’s request. He said the precise relationship between Houtart and the victim — whether he was a cousin, nephew, or more distant relative — wasn’t clear.

“It was a big, big surprise and a big, big (disappointment),” Polet said of the revelation. “Directly for us it was very clear that we could not continue to have some kind of collaboration” with Houtart.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

2 Responses to Vatican II peritus, potential Nobel Peace Prize winner, admits abuse

  1. 1yellowknife says:

    In the church’s report, the victim’s sister says her father went to talk to the priest about the incident a few days later and asked him to apologize, but the priest declined and “told my father that there wasn’t anything more normal.” Her father then cut off all contact with Houtart, the woman says.

    Hutart’s statement regarding his abuse of the 8 year old boy should be translated as describing his (Hutart’s abusive) actions as being the most normal thing in the world.

    How chilling!!

  2. Sylvia says:

    So true 1yellowknife. And think of it. …Hutart continued to hear confessions, preach and give spiritual advise for years. I shudder to think of the additional damage done by the advice Houtart must have dispensed and the ‘moral’ teachings he must have imparted over the years.

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