Catholic Brother Murdered Thirty Seven Boys

Multiple deaths at boys’ home were no accident
By Robert Chesal
28 June 2012

A Roman Catholic brother administered a deadly overdose of medication to 37 severely handicapped boys at a home for the disabled in the Netherlands 60 years ago, the Dutch public prosecution office has confirmed. On the heels of a castration scandal in the church this spring, a deeply macabre cold case has been solved.

Murder, manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter. Thirty-seven counts. Those are the charges that would have been brought against Brother Andreas if he were still alive and if the statue of limitations had not expired.

The public prosecutor in the Dutch city of Roermond reports that Andreas, who belonged to a congregation called the Brothers of the Holy Joseph, put the permanently bedridden boys to death one by one, shortly after they arrived at the home between 1952 and 1954.

No regrets

The public prosecutor's report, released this morning finally clarifies a sharp spike in deaths during that period at the Saint Joseph's home in the tiny southern hamlet of Heel.

Brother Andreas himself wrote in his memoirs that he had acted with the permission of his brother superior at Saint Joseph's, and in his writings he never expressed any regrets, according to the prosecutor's report.

If the staff medical doctor at the facility in Heel were alive today, he would be charged with forgery for issuing 37 death certificates falsely indicating death by natural causes.

The "Injection Brother"

The report details the worst crimes within Dutch Roman Catholic institutions since the sexual abuse scandal erupted in 2010. It does not specify the actual cause of death of the 37 youngsters, but calls it probable that the boys died of an overdose of medication, either morphine or Phenobarbital.

The statue of limitations for the criminal acts described in the report expired in 1972. The main "suspects" in the case are dead. Brother Andreas, who was known at Saint Joseph's as the "injection brother," died in 1997 and lies buried in Westvleteren, Belgium.

The Dutch public prosecution reports that several other brothers at Saint Joseph's were aware of what Andreas was doing. In 1954, at the very moment that the labor inspectorate was to begin an investigation into abuse allegations, Andreas was moved to another facility.

"Death room"

The spike in deaths in Heel came to light last year when the Deetman Commission, which was investigating sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, found suspicious evidence in the archives of the diocese of Roermond. The commission turned over the case to the public prosecutor’s office.

Amid a public outcry, the prosecutor launched a fact-finding inquiry last May, putting six investigators on the case. It was announced at that time that no criminal prosecutions would be possible.

As the story gripped the country, Nico van Hout, former head nurse at St Joseph's, told investigators from the prosecution office about a conversation he had when he was hired in 1969. An elderly nurse, a monk named Augustinus, took him by the arm to the infirmary and showed him the coffin storage rooms and the "death room."

False death certificates

Augustinus claimed his predecessor had personally killed 20 of the boys "to put them out of their suffering," Van Hout said.

Nico van Hout told the prosecutors he then went to the staff medical doctor at St Joseph's and confronted him with the story. The doctor told him the situation had been "a real headache." When Van Hout asked him what he meant, he said that "you could write 'heart failure' on a few of the death certificates, but you couldn't keep on filling in the same cause of death."

Aside from the deaths by overdose, the prosecution office's report also cited documentation of rampant physical and sexual abuse by the brothers at Saint Joseph's. Less severely disabled boys were slammed against walls, choked, and hit in the face with a ring of keys. At night they were put to work in a makeshift factory in the cellar where they produced light bulbs for Philips.

Widespread cover-up

The Dutch authorities at different levels were aware of the deaths, exploitation of children and other abuses as early as 1954, but none reported them to the police or prosecution service. The prosecutor's report says the facts were covered up by successive directors and management of the Saint Joseph's home, superiors of the Brothers of the Holy Joseph, the state labour and public health inspectors, and the state child protection authority.

The diocese of Roermond, responsible for the village of Heel, was also aware of the deaths and helped to cover them up, even though it was aware of the likelihood of foul play, the public prosecutor's report says. Even by the standards of that day, the prosecution service adds, it was "unacceptable" that the diocese took no further action.

Government cover-up

The labour inspectorate informed the diocese it would not report the deaths to higher authorities "so as not to harm the Catholic cause." Correspondence cited by the prosecution also indicates that the Secretary General of the child protection authority offered to ensure that the justice ministry "would not raise a stink" about the severe physical punishments meted out at Saint Joseph's.

The cover-up even extended to the Dutch government in The Hague. A high-ranking Catholic official at the justice ministry was informed in 1954 of the punishments and child labour taking place at the home. He wrote to the bishop of Roermond that if "a good solution" were found, "the minister would be willing to refrain from taking steps against Saint Joseph's."

The prosecution service informed all of the victims' next of kin of its findings prior to releasing today's report. RNW

Tagged Catholic Church Netherlands

Eugenics or Murder in the Dutch Catholic Church? Castration Certainly

Eugenics or murder? The article hints at a third motive, mercy killing. But having reported recently on the horrors that have been perpetrated on children by the Dutch Catholic Church, I'm having none of it. Continued after the fold.

Catholic monk responsible for dozens of deaths
25 June 2012

One man is responsible for the deaths of dozens of boys at the Saint Joseph mental institution in the province of Limburg, according to an investigation conducted by the local newspaper De Limburger.

Between 1952 and 1954, the mortality rate at Saint Joseph’s was alarmingly high. According to De Limburger, prosecutors will soon release the findings of their investigation into one of the most serious cases of abuse within a Catholic institution. The newspaper writes that a man called Brother Andreas, who is already deceased, was responsible for the deaths of the severely handicapped boys.

It is apparently unclear if Brother Andreas, also known as Brother Death, killed the boys or if they died because of neglect. It is also unclear whether Brother Andreas was motivated to spare the boys their suffering. RNW

Below is an introduction and link to a fifteen minute report on 'all things Dutch' for want of a better expression. The program begins with a report of forcible castrations committed on boys by the Dutch Catholic Church in the Fifties.

eta These were healthy boys that were subject to these atrocities, and for reasons most foul. I didn't want to give the impression that it was the mentally subnormal that had undergone these operations.

If these horrific goings on are new to you, you may first wish to read about these, and other abuses, that I cover in three previous posts under the tag, Catholic church Netherlands.

The horror of the abuse described in the report, is but nearly matched by the horror of the excuses given by the then, Dutch authorities of the day.

Church castrations
Over the past year, the Dutch have been shocked by evidence of child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. It appears that the abuse was widespread and that church officials conspired to cover it up. New evidence has now emerged that a number of young men were forcibly castrated after they complained about being abused.

Paying for testimony?
Peter la Serpe, the key witness in the Amsterdam liquidation case, will allegedly be paid 1.4 million euros as part of his witness protection agreement with the Ministry of Justice. The Dutch news organisation NOS says it has documents that lay out the details of that agreement. It's the latest twist in the prosecution of the suspects in a series of mob-style executions in Amsterdam between 1991 and 2005. La Serpe was allegedly a hitman who had a hand in at least one of the murders. Peter la Serpe's attorney has filed a complaint against the prosecution for the leak of the information to NOS. The Justice Ministry, meanwhile, has denied that La Serpe is being paid for his testimony.

The Dutch 30-hour work week
Dutch employees work the least number of hours in Europe. The European average is 37.5 hours a week; the Dutch only work 30.6 hours. Even though worker productivity in the Netherlands is very high, the European Union says it would be good for the Dutch economy if people worked longer hours. So why do the Dutch work so little?

President Obama's transsexual former nanny
A Dutch reporter has visited the nanny who took care of a young Barack Obama and his family when they lived in Indonesia in the 1960s. After the Obama family left the country, Mr Turdi became "Miss Evie", wearing dresses and make-up and working in the sex industry. (Don't tell the Republicans) Link

Joseph Ratzinger Paedophile Protector J'accuse The Shocking Story of Dutch Clerical Abuse

I ran one of the stories featured here a little earlier today, so of the words I wrote previously, I shall avail myself now. See: Time for the truth about Catholic sex abuse in the Netherlands.

Firstly though, a third party description regarding the work carried out by Dutch journalists, Joep Dohmen and Robert Chesal in exposing the horrific goings on in the Dutch Catholic Church.

A short report then follows; both men receiving Journalists of the year awards, and after that, the horror stories.

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Church of child abuse
by Marcel Van Silfhout
March 20, 2012

The stories that reached the newspapers are painful and tragic

The scandal was first revealed in Ireland. Then more scams surfaced in the United States and Australia, followed by Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and The Netherlands. The Vatican might hope for an end to the sweeping devastating scandals about child sex abuse at countless Catholic institutions. But realists will say: “its just the beginning”. All eyes were on Pope Benedict XVI what would he say in his Easter message. Would he say sorry at least? He didn’t.

As said, Holland wasn’t the first and only country to disclose the existence of a wide range of paedophile priests, monks, fathers and teachers in the past decades. But the number of scandals in this little country is still impressive.

It all started with the excellent investigative reporting done by Joep Dohmen (NRC-Handelsblad) and Robert Chesal (RNW-Radio Netherlands Wordwide) late February. Since their publications of child sex abuse in a monastery and a boarding school of the so-called ´Salesianer Order´ there hasn’t been a day without new revelations. Meanwhile, Dohmen and Chesal received hundreds of new complaints about various cases of abuse in Catholic schools and seminaries. They counted at least 137 Catholic fathers and monks involved in the offences. As a result, the Dutch Catholic Church has started an investigation.

The stories that reached the papers are confronting, painful and tragic. Many men, aged between 45 and 80, for the first time in their lives, cried out loud, disclosing the traumatic incidents when they were young, innocent, vulnerable and defenceless. As boys they were sent to these schools by their parents who had full trust in the holy Catholic Church, its institutions and its devoted priests.

The boys, sometimes girls, didn’t dare to complain. And if they did, nobody believed them. Parents even became angry with them when they tried to speak out. The detailed descriptions of sex abuse in these stories could only be summarised by the adequate word that former Archbishop and cardinal Ratzinger used just one week before his election to the papacy in 2005. He referred to priests who abused their position as ´filth´.

More important, most of the cases of child abuse are criminal, a clear matter of violating the law. But due to the fact that it happened mainly in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s makes it impossible to bring them to justice. In Holland, punishments of 8 to 12 year are given, but crimes such as these can only be prosecuted within 12 to 20 years.

As a result, the Dutch government has decided to extend the time period to take up child abuse cases to an unlimited period. There is reason to do so: Child abuse belongs to the highest ranks of criminal offences. One has to read some of the many detailed stories. All the victims have suffered psychological damage of highest degree throughout their lives. Though some of them have reached the age of 80 years, they still suffer from nightmares, shame, depression and total distrust. The scale of the scandals might be astonishing and the list of dramatic consequences is beyond imagination.

Nevertheless, the Dutch Archbishop Johannes Simonis has managed to get Holland into stupefaction once more. In the famous late-night talk show Pauw And Witteman, Simonis said: ´Wir habben es nicht Gewusst,´´ (we didn’t know) a phrase that is used in Holland as the famous understatement made by Germans when they tried to explain their failure to prevent atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. Simonis excused himself the other day for using this notorious phrase, but of course these same words apply to his boss, the German Pope Benedictus XVI. He did know.

According to the authoritative Süddeutsche Zeitung, former Cardinal Ratzinger was fully aware of a paedophile priest ´Brother H´ who should have got therapy, but later on continued his activities of child sex abuse. The New York Times also accused Benedictus of failing to act over an American priest who molested up to 200 deaf children between 1950 and 1974.

In an editorial, the Dutch quality newspaper NRC Handelsblad is clear about the almost impossible position of the pope. “The net is closing around Pope Benedict XVI´ and ´he has become part of the problem.” A few weeks ago the Dutch emeritus professor Hans Küng wrote in the same paper that it was Cardinal Ratzinger´s office at the Vatican that demanded the exclusive authorisation of all cases concerning rampant child sex abuse in order to keep those events discreet. In other words, it was the Vatican policy executed by Ratzinger personally to keep it all secret.

The Vatican is still defending its vision that most of the cases are old, known and cleared. Catholic spokesman speaks about ´incidents.´ But it is clear in Holland, Germany, the United States, Australia, Austria and Switzerland that the scandals aren’t incidents. They are structural phenomena.

On Palm Sunday, Pope Benedictus XVI didn’t mention the child sex abuse scandals, but he did say: “God gives the one who believes the courage to withstand intimidation by rumours made in common opinion.” If this is all that he had to say at Easter, it is clear that the Vatican once more brings us callousness and arrogance, instead of the necessary apologies, transparency and investigations. Just another ´wir habben es nicht gewust´ (we didn´t know) won´t work.

(Marcel van Silfhout is an investigative reporter working for public Dutch Television). Oman Tribune

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Robert Chesal and Joep Dohmen honoured as Journalist of the Year
27 January 2011

Recognition for the work of journalists, and recognition for the thousands of victims of church sex abuse. This is how Radio Netherlands Worldwide reporter Robert Chesal characterised the 2010 Journalist of the Year Award. Robert Chesal and his colleague Joep Dohmen from the newspaper NRC Handelsblad received the award from the hands of Culture Minister Marja van Bijsterveldt.

Joep Dohmen, Minister Marja van Bijsterveldt, Robert Chesal

The annual prize is awarded by the editorial staff of the Journalists’ magazine Villamedia Magazine. Robert Chesal and Joep Dohmen were honoured for their series of publications on sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church; publications preceded by months of investigative journalism.

One revelation after another

Reports about church sex abuse had surfaced years earlier in Ireland, the United States and Germany, but everything remained quiet in the Netherlands, until Robert Chesal called up Joep Dohmen following an interview about abuse at a boarding school. Robert put the right journalistic question: “Was this man’s report an incident or symptomatic of a much wider problem?” Their collaboration led to a stream of publications featuring one revelation after another and eventually gave rise to the creation of the Deetman Commission which was charged with investigation the reports. Radio Netherlands Worldwide

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This is the text I previously employed to introduce the post below under the header:

Peadophile Priests Prime Ministers Politicians and Police

Not a story about the UK, if from reading the header, that is what you were expecting, but more details surrounding the previous shocking expose, Forced Child Castrations Reportedly Found in Roman Catholic Care.

Evil is a word I seldom use, the main reason being, the way the word has been hi-jacked by the religious, giving a single word the status of an entity in its own right; evil, like the Devil, lurking in some dark corner as it were.

But there is evil here, not in the form of some supernatural demon, but like evil the world over, evil in the only form it takes, the only form it has, man alone. And nothing so evil as man cloaked in the garb of all evils, the apparel of religion. And in this particular case, worn by those of the Catholic Church.

And let not one of you, for the love of what ever fictional entity you may pray to, have the affront to tell me, ''but this isn't true Catholicism'' because it is. This cult of perversion and pederasty is every bit true of Catholicism as intolerance, misogyny, and the cult of death, is Islam.

The paedophile will never stop abusing children, if only in his fantasies. The wife beater, for all his contrition and promises after the act, will never stop beating his wife, and the priesthood will never stop physically and sexually abusing children. It is what they are, it is their being, their fundamental make up, it is as unalterable as their DNA.

And unimaginable as it might seem, there are those that carry even more guilt than those that perpetrated these horrific acts on children, those that let it happen decade after decade, the Joseph Ratzinger's of this world.

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Time for the truth about Catholic sex abuse in the Netherlands
19 March 2012

The revelation that a number of minors who were abused in Dutch Roman Catholic institutions were also forcibly castrated has shocked the Netherlands. It casts grave doubt upon the recent findings of a commission set up to look into abuse in the church. RNW's Robert Chesal, who first brought the sex abuse scandal to light, argues that only parliament can be trusted to investigate further.

We now know that former Dutch cabinet minister Wim Deetman did not meet the expectations he raised when he chaired the commission of inquiry into sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church. He did not get to the bottom of the abuse scandal or reveal all of the horrors that took place behind church doors in the Netherlands. More

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Forced castrations reportedly found in Roman Catholic care
17 March 2012

Underage sexual abuse victims were castrated in Dutch Roman Catholic psychiatric wards in the 1950s, according to the Rotterdam-based newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

Castration was performed on young men who were thought to be homosexual, but also as a means of punishing those who blew the whistle on abusers, the paper quotes sources as saying.

NRC discovered proof of the forced castration of one young man and strong evidence that at least ten other abuse victims were subjected to the removal of their testicles. The proof includes court documents, medical records, letters from lawyers and private correspondence.

According to the paper, the practice was reported in 2010 to the Deetman Commission which completed its investigation of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church last December. The commission, led by former cabinet minister Wim Deetman of the Christian Democrat party (CDA), made no mention of the castration of abuse victims in its final report. More

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Covering the Catholic sex abuse cover-up
16 December 2011

Roman Catholic bishops in the Netherlands protected sexual abusers and covered up their crimes, according to a major new report released today. The church-installed Deetman Commission says there were up to 20,000 victims of abuse between the end of World War II and 1981.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide journalist Robert Chesal - together with NRC Handelsblad's Joep Dohmen - brought to light the abuse that led to a national scandal. Robert Chesal looks back at how the story unfolded.

You could say that 2010 was the year when the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal went viral. Until February of that year, abuse of youngsters by Catholic clergy was primarily seen as a problem in Ireland and the United States.

German scandal
But that month, as northern Europe lay buried in snow, a simmering problem began to reach boiling point. Reports from a Catholic boarding school run by Jesuits in the German capital Berlin spoke first of a few, then of a dozen, and then of over a hundred victims of abuse by priests.

One of those reports reached me at the RNW newsroom in mid-February. That same day I read that Pope Benedict XVI had ordered the entire Irish bishops' conference to appear at the Vatican, where they would receive a dressing down for failing to tackle abuse in their dioceses. I decided to investigate what, if anything, had happened in the Netherlands. More and the bigger picture.

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"Catholic church knew about sexual abuse in 1958"
30 November 2011

A Dutch current affairs programme has uncovered evidence that in 1958 the Netherlands’ Catholic Church hierarchy was told that children were being physically and sexually abused in its institutions. The evidence is contained in a letter found in the archives of the Catholic child protection services. The letter was written by a judge who warned the board of the child protection services that clerics were sexually abusing children.

The board took action and sent various letters to the boards of institutions to warn them. The confidential letters mentioned a black list of abusers. But the church hierarchy failed to take steps to stop the abuse. End

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Dutch bishop faces new abuse allegations
15 November 2011

The Dutch police have been asked via Interpol to investigate new sex abuse allegations against retired Dutch bishop 'Cor S.' Radio Netherlands Worldwide has learned this from conversations with the sex crimes division of the Irish national police. In the Netherlands, both the police and prosecution service deny having received the request.

Cor S. (full name withheld) is one of six Roman Catholic priests who face allegations from Emmanuel Shikuku, a former seminary student from Kenya. All six are members of the Mill Hill Missionaries, a society based in Maidenhead, England which has told Radio Netherlands that all the allegations are untrue.

Altar boy
Mr Shikuku, now 42, has told the Irish sex crimes police he was the victim of a long series of rapes, coercive sexual contact and other forms of abuse by Mill Hill priests starting in the late 1970s. Four of the alleged perpetrators are Dutch and two are believed to be British. More

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Abuse in Dutch Catholic care: more evidence
24 September 2011

Serious abuses went on unreported for years in Dutch Roman Catholic homes for the mentally disabled. They included sex offences, castration, secret medical experiments and possibly murder. One Catholic brother was banished to Africa for doing unethical brain research. Radio Netherlands Worldwide tracked him down.

Until recent years, most abuses in Dutch institutional care were kept out of the public eye. One exception was a scandal in 1978 involving medical experiments at 'Huize Assisië’, a Roman Catholic boarding school for mentally handicapped boys in the southern town of Udenhout.

Brain x-rays
The home's medical doctor and a Catholic nurse known as Brother Dionysius performed spinal taps on approximately 180 patients, including minors. They injected fluid and air into the patients' brains in order to take x-rays of the cerebral cortex. These were used for brain research which was quietly being carried out. After the injections, the patients suffered nausea and headaches for days. Their parents were neither asked for permission nor notified of the procedures. More and quite shocking.

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Abuse victims urge ICC to prosecute the pope
13 September 2011

Victims of sexual abuse by the clergy have asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to prosecute Pope Benedict XVI and other leading Vatican officials for crimes against humanity. A worldwide network of victims accuses the pontiff and three cardinals of aiding and abetting wide-scale rape and sexual violence against children by priests. Fat chance! more

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High child death rate in 1950s mental institution investigated
17 August 2011

The Dutch Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the cases of 34 mentally disabled youngsters who died whilst in the care of Roman Catholic clergy at the St Joseph care home in the southern province of Limburg at the beginning of the 1950s.

However, it has now also come to light that 40 girls at another Catholic home in the same town, Heel, also died in the period 1952 - 1954. In the case of these deaths, at the St Anna home for mentally disabled women, the girls were all aged 12 or younger, whilst the boys who died at St Joseph's were between 11 and 18. More

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There are in fact, five pages of this stuff, page two can be found here, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, personally, I've had enough.

A choice of two videos below, both highlighting the Vatican's complicity in protecting priests at all costs and the total disregard in which it held the child victims of clerical sexual abuse.

And one last word, dripping with irony as it does, Rick Santorum's recent cheap politicking regarding euthanasia in the Netherlands. (See Rick Santorum tag)

It would appear that euthanasia has been practiced in the Netherlands, eugenics certainly have, and we know by whose hand, that of the Catholic Church.

Rick Santorum is a Catholic. And like every other subject that Ricky has an opinion on, he also has an opinion on paedophilia in the Catholic Church: Santorum Hypocrisy Writ Large: Church Paedophilia a 'Basic Homosexual Relationship'

Perhaps one or two of you might like to give Ricky a tweet regarding this post.

Mick Peelo looks at some internal Vatican letters that appear to paint a picture of Vatican obstructionism towards investigations into clerical sexual abuse.

Sex Crimes and the Vatican is a documentary film by Colm O'Gorman, who was raped by a Catholic priest in the diocese of Ferns in County Wexford in Ireland when he was 14 years old. Father Sean Fortune was charged with 66 counts of sexual, indecent assault and another serious sexual offence relating to eight boys but he committed suicide on the eve of his trial. Colm started an investigation with the BBC in March 2002 which led to the resignation of Dr Brendan Comiskey, the bishop leading the Ferns Diocese. Colm then pushed for a government inquiry which led to the Ferns Report.

Big tip of the hat, Dutch reader, Maren.

Peadophile Priests Prime Ministers Politicians and Police

Not a story about the UK, if from reading the header, that is what you were expecting, but more details surrounding the previous shocking expose, Forced Child Castrations Reportedly Found in Roman Catholic Care.

Evil is a word I seldom use, the main reason being, the way the word has been hi-jacked by the religious, giving a single word the status of an entity in its own right; evil, like the Devil, lurking in some dark corner as it were.

But there is evil here, not in the form of some supernatural demon, but like evil the world over, evil in the only form it takes, the only form it has, man alone. And nothing so evil as man cloaked in the garb of all evils, the apparel of religion. And in this particular case, worn by those of the Catholic Church.

And let not one of you, for the love of what ever fictional entity you may pray to, have the affront to tell me, ''but this isn't true Catholicism'' because it is. This cult of perversion and pederasty is every bit true of Catholicism as intolerance, misogyny, and the cult of death is Islam.

The paedophile will never stop abusing children, if only in his fantasies. The wife beater, for all his contrition and promises after the act, will never stop beating his wife, and the priesthood will never stop physically and sexually abusing children. It is what they are, it is their being, their fundamental make up, it is as unalterable as their DNA.

And unimaginable as it might seem, there are those that carry even more guilt than those that perpetrated these horrific acts on children, those that let it happen decade after decade, the Ratzinger's of this world.

Time for the truth about Catholic sex abuse in the Netherlands
By Robert Chesal
19 March 2012

The revelation that a number of minors who were abused in Dutch Roman Catholic institutions were also forcibly castrated has shocked the Netherlands. It casts grave doubt upon the recent findings of a commission set up to look into abuse in the church. RNW's Robert Chesal, who first brought the sex abuse scandal to light, argues that only parliament can be trusted to investigate further.

We now know that former Dutch cabinet minister Wim Deetman did not meet the expectations he raised when he chaired the commission of inquiry into sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church. He did not get to the bottom of the abuse scandal or reveal all of the horrors that took place behind church doors in the Netherlands.

Whistle blowers punished

We know this thanks to investigative journalist Joep Dohmen of the newspaper NRC Handelsblad. Dohmen wrote about a boarding school student who had been sexually abused by a Dutch monk. When the former student reported the abuse to the police in 1956, he was brought to a Roman Catholic psychiatric ward, declared a homosexual and then castrated. The same surgery was probably performed on at least ten other schoolmates of his who tried to blow the whistle on abuse.

The main abuser in this case was ‘Gregorius,’ the brother superior of the Roman Catholic Harreveld boarding school in the east of the Netherlands.

We cannot yet say for sure why the Deetman Commission left all this information out of its voluminous report on sexual abuse in the church that was published just three months ago. The commission received a clear complaint detailing the castrations in 2010, which it now says it did not investigate "for lack of sufficient leads".

This explanation looks shaky at best, seeing as Joep Dohmen was able, in just a few months’ time, to find irrefutable evidence of one such illegal castration and strong indications of ten more.

Senior politician involved

But Dohmen found something even more important. He discovered that the Deetman Report failed to mention a certain political figure who tried to secure a royal pardon for Gregorius and other convicted Catholic brothers from Harreveld. That was Victor Marijnen, a former Dutch prime minister and leading member of the Catholic People's Party (KVP). The KVP later merged with Protestant parties to form the Christian Democrats (CDA) - the political party of inquiry commission chairman Wim Deetman.

Victor Marijnen was in an extraordinary position in the 1950s. Not only was he a rising star in his political party, he was also vice-chairman of the Dutch Catholic child protection agency, and –most pertinently– director of Harreveld boarding school. The Deetman Commission was aware of these connections and the potential conflicts of interest they represent. The commission was aware of Marijnen’s letter to the Queen on behalf of sexual abusers, too, but omitted these facts in its report.

Reacting to Dohmen's revelations, the Deetman Commission explains that it did not mention Marijnen because it did not detail any cases that could be traced back to an individual, for the sake of protecting privacy. However, elsewhere in the same report we see numerous mentions of cases that can be traced back to individuals, even highly-placed figures such as bishops Ad Simonis and Philippe Bär. The commission did not shy away from slapping these men on the wrist.

It's not unreasonable to conclude that the Deetman Commission refrained from investigating the castration because it knew this would inevitably lead to closer scrutiny of the Harreveld situation, exposing the role of Victor Marijnen and showing Mr Deetman’s own political party in a very negative light indeed.




The big picture

But this may be too narrow a view. The bigger picture is this: Victor Marijnen was just one member of a wider elite of Catholic notables who weilded vast power in the 1950s. They were captains of industry, chairmen of commissions, judges, high-ranking civil servants and politicians. And it was through this old boys network that abuse at Harreveld and other Roman Catholic institutions was covered up.

In short, the Harreveld castration story reveals collusion between institutions, bishops, politicians, the police and the justice system that enabled sexual abuse in the church to continue unpunished for decades on end.

Questions to answer

It's now clear that the critics were right when they complained that a church-installed commission of inquiry could not, or would not, get to the bottom of the abuse scandal. There must now be an impartial inquiry whose integrity is beyond doubt. Only parliament can fulfil this role. And perhaps the first witness called to testify under oath should be Wim Deetman himself. Radio Netherlands

Journalists of the Year 2010
RNW's Robert Chesal and Joep Dohmen of NRC Handelsblad were named journalists of the year in 2010 for their work in exposing sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church in the Netherlands.

Dohmen also published the book "Vrome Zondaars" (Pious Sinners) on the same subject.

Forced Child Castrations Reportedly Found in Roman Catholic Care

Jesus Christ! is there no end to the horror stories that keep coming out of the Dutch Catholic Church?

Forced castrations reportedly found in Roman Catholic care
17 March 2012

Underage sexual abuse victims were castrated in Dutch Roman Catholic psychiatric wards in the 1950s, according to the Rotterdam-based newspaper NRC Handelsblad.




Castration was performed on young men who were thought to be homosexual, but also as a means of punishing those who blew the whistle on abusers, the paper quotes sources as saying.

NRC discovered proof of the forced castration of one young man and strong evidence that at least ten other abuse victims were subjected to the removal of their testicles. The proof includes court documents, medical records, letters from lawyers and private correspondence.

According to the paper, the practice was reported in 2010 to the Deetman Commission which completed its investigation of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church last December. The commission, led by former cabinet minister Wim Deetman of the Christian Democrat party (CDA), made no mention of the castration of abuse victims in its final report.

NRC also writes that a prominent Dutch politician tried to secure a royal pardon for Catholic brothers convicted of sexual abuse at Harreveld, a former boarding school in the Netherlands. The politician was Vic Marijnen, who later became Dutch prime minister.

Marijnen was chairman of the Harreveld board of governors at the time when the abuses took place. He was also vice-chairman of the Netherlands' main Catholic child protection agency and leader of the Catholic People's Party (KVP), which later merged with Protestant groups to create the Christian Democrats.

In a reaction, the church-installed Deetman Commission says it did not publish any findings on the castration of abused minors in its final report because it had "too few leads for further investigation." The commission did not report on the actions of Vic Marijnen because "the case was unmistakeably tied to circumstances which could be traced back to an individual person." In its final report, the commission left most identities anonymous as a means of protecting individuals' privacy. Radio Netherlands and more Catholic Church abuse stories.

H/T Maren.