Composer of closing song for 2024 Papal celebration in Belgium known for twenty years as perpetrator of abuse. Cardinal Danneels knew yet he stayed in post as Headmaster.

The closing song of the Mass with Pope Francis on Sunday has been revealed to have been composed by Paul Schollaert, a priest who committed sexual abuse and who died this month. The Church will not perform his version of the song.

It was supposed to be the musical finale of the Mass in the King Baudouin Stadium. 37,000 people were supposed to sing along to the Magnificat. The accompanying music was composed by Father Paul Schollaert, a well-known choir director and acclaimed composer. But now it appears a settlement was reached for the man in 2002, a contract drawn up between the church and victims of sexual abuse. Documents accessed by De Standaard reveal that Schollaert was in contact with the Halsberghe Commission. This is the predecessor of the Adriaenssens Commission, which investigated sexual abuse by clergy in 2010.

"The man was a well-known composer, so it's not illogical that one of his songs was chosen," responded Geert De Kerpel, spokesperson for the Bishops' conference.

 

The Magnificat.  Not Bruckner!

According to De Kerpel, no one within the working group that prepared the visit, of which he himself was a member, was aware. He calls it "a painful coincidence" and adds that the Schollaert version of the song will not be sung, but that it is "impossible to rework the 40,000 booklets already printed. We are currently looking for another composer, who could possibly perform the song in a different key."

Deed closed

Composer Paul Schollaert passed away on September 12. Things got rolling when Hasselt Bishop Patrick Hoogmartens praised Schollaert. When it became clear that a settlement had been reached for Schollaert, Hoogmartens announced that he would not participate in the public celebrations during the papal visit. "I understand that I was not considerate enough, causing us to hurt a victim of abuse," the bishop told the Belga news agency. "I deeply regret that. I have apologized to the victim and to Mr. Rik Devillé, who gave me the victim's phone number for this purpose."

Moreover, it appears that at the time the settlement was reached, Schollaert was director of the Leuven Lemmens Institute (now LUCA School of Arts, Lemmens campus), the same school where the incident allegedly took place in the 1970s. He graduated as a music educator in 1969, and was already leading the choir at that time. He was able to start working at the school as a teacher of choral conducting, music pedagogy, and liturgy. Not long after, in 1972, the incident allegedly occurred with an adult student. According to information from De Standaard, the student had been abused for years.

Schollaert initially denied it, but later admitted that "there had been illicit intimacies and that these incidents were compounded by the young age of my then-student and by my dual responsibility as a teacher and priest."

"Stunned," was Schollaert's successor, Marc Erkens, responding to the news. Erkens took over from Schollaert, who was director of the music program from 1989 to 2005. Erkens, who left the school himself about four years ago, worked closely with Schollaert for several years, particularly in the early 2000s. Around that time, Schollaert was contacted by the Halsberghe Committee. "He never said anything about it, and I never heard the slightest rumor that such things had occurred. What's more, I still remember how shocked we both were when the scandals surrounding abuse in the Church first came to light in 2010."

Cardinal Danneels appeared to have been aware. According to the documents, the victim wrote to Danneels in 1997. "He reacted very rudely," the victim responded to the newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws. Danneels also shielded Roger Vangheluwe when it emerged that he had abused his nephew Mark for years.

How it is possible that Schollaert was still active in education for years and was a headmaster at the time the settlement agreement was signed is a mystery. Whether the church informed the school at all is also unclear.

Priest Rik Devillé, founder of the church's human rights working group, is not surprised. He says it is "more common for known perpetrators to be so honoured within the church. Why is it that it is always the victims who have to point it out?" In May, investigations by this newspaper revealed that several names on the electoral lists for the priests' council, the body that advises Archbishop Luc Terlinden, were known to the church as perpetrators of sexual abuse. Even then, the church responded that the details of perpetrators and settlements - the contracts setting out financial compensation with victims - are not visible to everyone within the church administration.

According to Devillé, it should not be an excuse, he said then and reiterates now: "Serving on that council more than twice should not be allowed. The names of priests for whom this is the case are crossed out. But names of perpetrators of abuse cannot be crossed out? Nonsense."

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