2023-10-21 07:45:00
Its author – or author – took care to place it in a plastic protection on a grave in which a priest who died almost ten years ago is buried. A man who was active in the education sector in our region as well as in several parishes in Wapi.
A clearly recent letter
Several elements seem to indicate that this letter was recently submitted. Its good state of conservation is one of them, obviously. But also the fact that this missive was seen – and read – by people who very regularly visit the Southern cemetery and who had never spotted it before even though it was placed in plain sight.
As indicated by the logo in the lower left corner of the letter, the author – or the author – used a niceday brand paper support, which still exists although it was taken over by the Viking company in 2021 This is also the name of the online store where you can obtain this type of supply.
Flanders creates its own special commission dedicated to sexual abuse
Resentment pent up for years
We can reasonably think that it was new revelations of sexual abuse within the church – generally committed several decades ago – which prompted the writing of this letter, which is explicit to say the least.
A freedom of speech to which the book by Jean-Marc Turine, “Révérends Pères”, published in March 2022 by Esperluète editions, also contributed.
In this work, the author denounces, 60 years after the events, the abuses of which he and some of his comrades were victims at the hands of members of the clergy. Among which is a man – who died shortly before the Covid crisis – who was also very active in our region in the education sector.
A time-barred matter for Justice
But let’s return to this abbot buried in the Southern cemetery and towards whom the author – or the author – of the letter clearly maintains a tenacious resentment.
If we do not openly reveal his identity, it is certainly not because we have been under any pressure or for any other reason, but simply because this matter is in fact time-barred.
However, several complaints were indeed filed against this man around ten years ago, as was confirmed to us by the Tournai public prosecutor’s office.
And this, shortly before the person concerned’s death. But it is not only this death, as one might think, which caused the extinction of public action.
Sexual abuse in the Church: victims testify in a VRT documentary which creates a stir in Flanders
“The complaints were filed after too long a delay. The statute of limitations is what we call the right to be forgotten, explains Frédéric Bariseau, first deputy of the king’s prosecutor at the Mons/Tournai public prosecutor’s office. The law sets, depending on the type of offense, a period beyond which the person can no longer be prosecuted (6 months for a contravention, 5 years for an offense with the possibility of interruption of the limitation period and the start of a new period of same length where applicable if an interrupting act is carried out or with the possibility of suspension of the deadline). In matters of morals, this period begins to run from the victim’s majority. The deadlines, in this area, have regularly been extended and amended (see article 21 et seq. of the Code of Criminal Investigation)
As for the death of the suspect, this is also a cause for termination of public action. We cannot convict a deceased person (see article 20 of the Code of Criminal Investigation).”
A prescribed affair, certainly, but which clearly remains well anchored in the memory of those – and/or those – who experienced it.
Now, there is no point in casting opprobrium on all members of the clergy because, as Brassens sang so well, everyone is obviously not to be put in the same bag…
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