Belgian activist priest admits sexual abuse

[December 29, 2010]  BRUSSELS (AP) -- A Belgian priest has confessed to a child sex-abuse accusation that came to light during a campaign to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work fighting globalization's impact on developing countries.

The confession was published in a Belgian newspaper Wednesday and confirmed by the organization the priest founded, deepening a sex-abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in the country. After a spate of accusations this year, the church in September published the harrowing accounts of more than 100 victims of clerical sex abuse, some as young as two when they were assaulted.

In October, after supporters of 85-year-old Francois Houtart began working to nominate him for the Nobel, a woman contacted the nonprofit organization he founded and said the priest had abused her brother 40 years ago, according to its director, Bernard Duterme.

Houtart resigned the next month from the board of Cetri, which publishes reports critical of developed nations' actions in the Third World, Duterme said.

Houtart told the newspaper Le Soir that he twice touched "the intimate parts" of his cousin, an incident he called "inconsiderate and irresponsible."

In her e-mail to Cetri and the committee to nominate Houtart for the Nobel Prize, the victim's sister also pointed to her testimony in the church's report, Duterme said.

There, she details the abuse of her brother, which she describes as "rape," by an unnamed priest.

She says the priest, who was a friend of her father, entered her brother's room twice "to rape him." "Before the third time, my brother went to tell his parents, who kept him in their room," she is quoted as saying in the report.

The priest isn't named in the report.

Houtart is in Ecuador and didn't immediately respond to phone calls and e-mail Wednesday, but he told Le Soir that he entered the boy's room, when he was staying with the boy's parents close to Liege, in eastern Belgium.

"Walking through the room of one of the family's boys, I effectively touched his intimate parts twice, which woke him up and frightened him," Houtart is quoted as saying.

The committee in November ended its campaign to nominate Houtart for the 2011 Nobel Prize, saying the priest had requested its termination because "his age and his personal projects would not allow him to fully assume the role requested in such circumstances."

In a statement, the committee said "thousands of people" in 74 countries had participated in the signature campaign, recognizing Houtart's role in the social justice and antiglobalization movement.

In the church's report, the victim' sister says her father went to talk to the priest about the incident a few days later and asked him to apologize, but the priest declined to apologize and "told my father that there wasn't anything more normal." Her father then cut off all contact with Houtart, the woman says.

In the interview with Le Soir, Houtart says he was "personally perturbed" by the incident, "since I was conscious of the contradiction it represented with my Christian faith and my function as a priest."

He says the boy's parents suggested he get in touch with a professor at the seminar in Liege, who advised him to stay in the priesthood and concentrate on his work.

Francois Polet, a researcher at Cetri, said it was at the victim's sister's request that the organization decided not to go public with the reason for Houtart's resignation from the board. He said the precise relationship between the Houtart and the victim -- whether he was a cousin, nephew, or more distant relative -- wasn't clear.

"It was a big, big surprise and a big, big (disappointment)," Polet said of the revelation. "Directly for us it was very clear that we could not continue to have some kind of collaboration" with Houtart.

[Associated Press; By GABRIELE STEINHAUSER]

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