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====Vangheluwe affair and its aftermath====
From 1973 to 1986, [[Roger Vangheluwe]], a priest since 1963 and the Bishop of Bruges since early 1985, sexually abused a nephew of his. Rik Devillé, a priest who had had a couple of conflicts with Danneels,<ref>M&S 315–323, 405–406, 422.</ref> said, after the scandal broke on 23 April 2010, that he had warned Danneels about Vangheluwe in the mid-1990s.<ref name=NYT>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/world/europe/30belgium.html|title=Belgian Church Leader Urged Victim to Be Silent|date=30 August 2010|work=The New York Times}}</ref> In 2010, Danneels said that he did not remember this.<ref name="M&S 484">M&S 484.</ref> But Danneels certainly knew about Vangheluwe's crime before the scandal broke because, in the beginning of April 2010, Vangheluwe had himself told Danneels that he had had a sexual contact with a minor.<ref name="M&S 484"/> What Danneels did, or did not do, in the few weeks before the scandal broke, earned him a great deal of criticism, both at home and abroad. On 8 April, Vangheluwe pressured Danneels to accept a meeting with himself, his victim and the victim's relatives. At that meeting Danneels advised the victim to delay a public statement until Vangheluwe had retired.<ref>{{cite
In the weeks after Vangheluwe's resignation, the "Commission for Complaints about Sexual Abuse in Pastoral Relations" (now often called the Adriaenssens Commission, after its chairman, child psychiatrist Peter Adriaenssens) received no fewer than 475 complaints about sexual abuse. On 24 June, in an operation code named ''Kelk'' ("Chalice") organized at the request of the Office of the Public Prosecutor, the archiepiscopal palace, Danneels' private apartment, the Leuven seat of the Adriaenssens Commission and even [[St. Rumbold's Cathedral]] (where the graves of Cardinal Mercier and Cardinal [[Leo Joseph Suenens|Suenens]] were broken into) were simultaneously searched for documents about cases of sexual abuse that could still be prosecuted (unlike that of Vangheluwe, beyond the statute of limitation).<ref>M&S 487–488.</ref> On 6 July, Danneels was subjected to an all-day interrogation by the Brussels branch of the [[Federal Police (Belgium)|Judicial Police]].<ref>M&S 488.</ref> Later the search was judged to have been illegal and all documents seized were returned.<ref>M&S 493.</ref> Great damage to Danneels's reputation was caused by the publication in ''De Standaard'' and ''[[Het Nieuwsblad]]'' on 28 August 2010 of the transcript of tape recordings, made secretly, of the two meetings Danneels had had with the victim and his family. The transcripts revealed that the victim felt that he was not being understood and considered Danneels' manner to be inept.<ref>M&S 489.</ref>
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