By revealing this figure on Wednesday, the Belgian bishops' conference established a link with a documentary broadcast in the fall of 2023 by the Flemish public channel VRT, which brought this scandal back to the forefront.
In “Godvergeten” (“forgotten by God” in Dutch), around twenty victims, mainly elderly men, gave shocking testimonies about the sexual assaults or rapes suffered decades ago when they attended institutions as teenagers. Catholics.
« In 2023, 14,251 people requested to be removed from the baptismal registers of the Catholic Church in Belgium », indicated the episcopal conference. “ In previous years, this figure generally hovered around 1,200, with a peak of more than 5,000 in 2021 “, she stressed.
“Out of disgust for sexual abuse”
« No reason is asked when requesting delisting, but many have spontaneously indicated that they do so out of disgust for sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and the culture of silence present in the past, as shown in the series television Godvergeten », Continues the press release.
The bishops' conference notes that an overwhelming majority (98%) of requests for deregistration come from baptized Catholics living in Brussels or in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking north of the country. Wallonia, the French-speaking south, is very little affected. At the end of September, during a trip to Belgium, Pope Francis declared that the Church must “ to be ashamed » et « ask for forgiveness » for sexual violence against minors perpetrated by members of the clergy.
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