Brussels, Belgium, Jul 7, 2010 / 01:06 am
As part of a government probe into allegations of child abuse by priests, Cardinal Godfried Danneels was questioned for several hours by Belgian police on Tuesday. Reportedly in “a state of shock,” he is said to have difficulty believing that many people think he knew about sexual abuse and did nothing.
The 77-year-old cardinal led the Catholic Church in Belgium until his retirement last year. A retired priest has accused him of sheltering abusive priests during his tenure from 1979 to 2009, the Agence France Presse reports. The cardinal has denied any cover-up.
During police questioning, Cardinal Danneels was reportedly confronted by Dr. Peter Adriaenssens, a psychiatrist who formerly headed a church-backed commission probing hundreds of reported cases of clerical child abuse.
As he was leaving the police building, Adriaenssens told reporters he could not and did not want to talk about the contents of what he called a “confrontation.”