Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk

Photo: M. Wolters, Wikimedia Commons

Metropolitan Archbishop of Utrecht, Netherlands

Dioceses/Religious Orders: Diocese of Roermond, Diocese of Groningen-Leeuwarden, Archdiocese of Utrecht

Following a number of reports about clergy sexual abuse in the Netherlands, a Commission of Inquiry, led by Wim Deetman, was formed in 2010 to conduct an investigation into sexual abuse of minors in the Roman Catholic Church from 1945 to 2010. Victims groups were critical of the commission which had been set up by bishops and did not allow for testimony of church officials under oath. At the time, over 200 victims called for a parliamentary inquiry. In 2016, it was reported that victims had emails that demonstrated that Deetman had directly pressured board members of the victims’ organization National Consultation Organization for Church Abuse (KLOKK) to “intimidate” them into dropping their calls for a parliamentary inquiry.

The Deetman Commission found announced its findings in December 2011, reporting that at least 10,000 and 20,000 children had been abused in Roman Catholic institutions since 1945. A spokesperson for KLOKK told media the church had done everything possible to keep the incidents from being publicized. The report stated that church foundation Hulp & Recht (Aid & Justice), created by the Roman Catholic Church of the Netherlands in the 1990s to address abuse reports, had compiled a list of 47 reports of abuse from 2002, attributing the high number to revelations of widespread abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston in the United States. According to the meeting notes examined by the Commission of Inquiry, Eijk had been present at a 2003 meeting of the Conference of Bishops where this report was discussed. It is unclear if Eijk took any action to remove or investigate the priests named in the report.

In 2012, a former student of the Bleijerheide boarding school in Kerkrade filed a complaint with Heerlen police about sexual abuse and mistreatment by 11 Franciscan brothers who had worked at the school. The accuser further filed complaints regarding the destruction of archives from the boarding school and the Diocese of Roermond and another complaint against Eijk for negligence in his conduct surrounding the still-living alleged perpetrators.