Amid the high-profile child sexual abuse scandals in the United States and
other European countries, the reputation of the Roman Catholic Church in the
Netherlands has remained unsullied. A joint investigation by NRC Handelsblad
and Radio Netherlands Worldwide shows this is unjustified.
Janne Geraets, now 57, suffered repeated sexual abuse from the age of 11 at
the hands of a priest at the Roman Catholic school where he was a boarder.
His ordeal began in 1964, at the Don Rua monastery in the town of
's-Heerenberg in the east of the Netherlands. He was being trained by the
Salesian Fathers of Don Bosco, in the hope of one day becoming a missionary.
After a party, one of the priests lured Janne to the infirmary under the
pretext of giving him medicine to ease his sore throat. "All of a
sudden he was right up against me," Geraets recalled. "He unzipped
his trousers and forced my hand inside. I was in a state of utter confusion." http://vorige.nrc.nl/article2493257.ece