The former Belgian bishop who resigned in April after admitting he sexually abused a nephew for years said Friday he would go into hiding to assess his future, despite calls for him to leave the church immediately.
His April admission triggered a huge crisis in the Belgian Roman Catholic Church. On Friday, a commission presented a report of hundreds of sex abuse victims over the past half century with harrowing accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy that reportedly led to at least 13 suicides.
Vangheluwe had been Belgium's longest serving bishop when he resigned, one year shy of retirement. The scandal acerbated when secret tapes of a discussion between the former head of the Belgian church, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, and the victim showed the cardinal wanted to keep the scandal secret until the bishop retired.