In late June, a story broke in Belgium regarding the raid of Catholic Church offices by Belgian police who were searching for evidence that might have been hidden in relation to the priestly sexual abuse of minors. Unsurprisingly, “The View’s” Joy Behar had no problem with the Gestapo-like seizure.
If the Brownshirts had created a playbook, the Belgian police would have executed it to the tee. The police detained the present bishops for over nine hours while they snooped high and low—even going so far as to drill into the tombs of two deceased cardinals—trying to get anything they could to indict the Belgian Church.
This raid was conducted despite the recent efforts of the committee set up by the Belgian bishops to investigate claims of priestly sexual abuse. The police claimed that the reason behind the operation was that they had received a formal accusation that there was information being hidden by the Belgian Church. But the way that the police carried out this search smacked of an agenda.
Of course, the women of “The View” had to chime in on this story, but as usual their commentary left much to be desired. Behar, a regular contributor to Catholic-bashing, chirped, “If you’re [the Church] not going to be forthcoming with the info, then the cops are going to come in and get it.” Whoopi Goldberg’s feeble attempt to defend the Vatican—saying that it was making strides regarding the abuse of minors—was nullified by her statement that the Church “can’t be surprised that they’re [the cops] going to come in” if they are stonewalled.
It is evident that these ladies don’t mind the Belgian police goose-stepping through Church files. But they would be the first to cry foul had a Planned Parenthood clinic been raided due to an accusation that it was hiding information regarding the number of statutory rape cases that enter. Therein lies their duplicity.
When Pope Benedict XVI addressed the Belgian incident he said that he hoped that justice would run its course by guaranteeing “the fundamental rights of people and institutions.” But his words didn’t end there. He called the actions of the Belgian police “surprising and deplorable.” We couldn’t agree more.
