Following damning revelations about sexual crimes committed by priests, bishops and lay people, it is now the turn of nuns to be called into question in the Flemish documentary series «De nonnen» («The Nuns»), broadcast on VTM. The testimonies collected describe a system of terror, physical and psychological abuse, child abductions, anonymous births, forced adoptions and suicides of young residents in orphanages, shelters and institutions run by religious congregations. These revelations add to a long list of crimes committed within the Catholic Church, with almost total impunity and with the passive, even active, complicity of states.
A regime of institutionalised terror
The first episodes of «De nonnen» reveal the horror experienced by children and young girls placed in the care of the Sisters of Saint Vincent in a former convent in Zelem (Halen) until the 1970s. Physical and psychological abuse, punishments amounting to torture, suspicious disappearances: these practices were not isolated cases, but rather reflected a system of organised domination and cruelty. Flemish Justice Minister Zuhal Demir is right to point out that the Church has repeatedly shown itself to be «an unreliable partner». She is demanding that the support of victims be entrusted to independent experts and that light be shed on these actions, in particular on the possible existence of «anonymous graves», such as those discovered in Ireland, where hundreds of babies who died in Catholic institutions were buried in mass graves.
Impunity, an accomplice to crime
The Catholic Church does not have a monopoly on abuse, but its scale in countries where it is dominant is unparalleled. Wherever investigations have been conducted, thousands, tens of thousands of victims have been identified, and networks of sexual crime, predation, theft and child trafficking have been uncovered. Yet despite the scale of the evidence, the Church continues to enjoy de facto, and even de jure, impunity in many countries, including Belgium. Concordats and tacit agreements with states protect those responsible, while victims are denied justice and compensation commensurate with their suffering.
The complicity of the state in question
In a joint statement with BELP in 2022 (here), we said that «the massive and repugnant facts and the criminal code of silence of the Catholic hierarchy raise legal, political and institutional issues». Successive revelations raise a fundamental question: why have successive governments, prosecutors and judicial institutions turned a blind eye for decades? Why is the Catholic Church still treated as an institution above the law, when its crimes are documented, massive and systematic? The complicity of the Belgian state, at all levels, is now being highlighted. The faithful themselves, in open rebellion, are demanding criminal convictions and compensation commensurate with the harm suffered, and are leaving the Church en masse.
It is time to take action
Faced with the criminal silence of the Catholic hierarchy and the criminal inaction of the State, we demand:
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The separation of church and state, and therefore the end of funding for religious organisations and their works (schools, hospitals, orphanages, maternity wards, etc.), rather than enshrining secularism in the Constitution, so that nothing changes (there).
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An end to impunity: all those responsible, whether clerics, religious or lay persons, should be brought before the civil courts, without privilege or protection.
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Truth and redress: independent investigations should be conducted, Church archives should be opened, and victims should receive full compensation, funded by the guilty institution, not by the taxpayer.
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The end of privileges: the state must stop treating the Catholic Church as an untouchable entity and fully assume its role as guarantor of justice for all. Wasn’t the Islamic faith placed under supervision for failing to ensure gender parity in its executive body?
We will not allow these crimes to be forgotten. The victims deserve justice. The public deserves the truth. The Catholic Church and its servants must answer for their crimes in civil courts, just like any other criminal organisation.
The Catholic Church can pay, so it must pay.
The CLP/KVD and the ECOF call on citizens to support and join the International Congress of the International Association of Free Thought (IAFT), which will be held in Grenoble and Lyon on 10 and 11 October 2025 and which has placed this issue at the centre of its agenda.
Bruxelles/Paris 1st September 2025
Information and registration for the IAFT Congress at: https://internationalfreethought.org/ixe-congres-ailp-programme/
and in Belgium with the CLP/KVD : clp.kvd@gmail.com – https://www.clp-kvd.org/
About ECOF : c/o Libre Pensée 10, rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques – 75005 PARIS beclp@laposte.net
