Given the lamentable record of the Catholic Church in addressing the long-standing criminal activities of its child-abusing members, it is no surprise that the Belgian authorities saw fit to confiscate material which was being reviewed by the bishops.
If the bishops had had a clear intention of addressing the issue, instead of working on the material themselves, they would have voluntarily involved criminal investigators. That they didn't do so is sufficient grounds for having zero confidence in their ability to address the issue.
We are left wondering what, if anything, they intended to do. Suppose they found evidence of child abuse. Their first decision would have been whether or not to inform the criminal investigators and that allows for the possibility that they might not have. It is entirely possible that in the interests of their own institution, the church, they would make a decision to attempt to resolve the "problem" internally. That of course, it utterly unacceptable.
The very fact that they were willing to filter through potential evidence and make a prior judgement about what if anything would be reported to the police shows how malleable is their sense of morality and justice. There should have been no question of the church looking into crimes committed within its ranks. Those criminal child abusers are subject to criminal law, defined and implemented by the state. They are not first accountable to the church.
There is an important principle here. The church has always pretended that they are answerable to some "higher authority", as if that supersedes the laws of the state. The church has behaved as if it can pick and choose whether or not to subject itself to civil law and the Belgian authorities have demonstrated that they don't have the choice.
The potential for incriminating evidence to be hidden away under the guise of "confidentiality" meant that the only way for the police to be sure of getting at the evidence itself was to seize it. The church should be ashamed of trying to conduct an internal review instead of voluntarily opening its documents to criminal investigators. This doesn't show the church implementing its so-called "zero tolerance" policy, but of once again trying to hide from the public gaze the shameful internal workings of the church administration.
We can see why so many people have "zero confidence" in the morality of the church.
