I\u2019ve watched this story <\/a>for a couple of days and waited for the dust to settle a bit since it was hard to tell what was what from the stuff coming over the web. Rod Dreher, as is unfortunately his custom these days, leapt on the story, paused briefly to say, \u201cI do not know if the Belgian raids were justified or unjustified\u201d and then, incredibly, proceeded to shout across the Bosporus at the Pope and declare him \u201cwrong<\/a>\u201d to denounce the raid anyway. The consensus of the Pope Should Shut Up commenters in his comboxes and elsewhere was, of course, that all this is obviously necessary to Help The Victims. The consensus was also, of course, that the Pope\u2019s motivations in denouncing must be sinister indeed. There simply can be no rational justification for protest and said protest is only evidence of his guity and inbred contempt for victims.<\/p>\n Yeah. Well, here\u2019s the thing about that whole \u201cHulk SMASH!\u201d approach<\/a>: <\/p>\n A Belgian man who says he was sexually abused by a priest filed a complaint with Brussels prosecutors Tuesday after his confidential testimony to a church-appointed panel was seized by Belgian police.<\/p>\n Jan Hertogen, a 63-year-old sociologist, said he told his story to the panel on the condition it would not be passed to authorities. He said the police raids \u2014 which also targeted a Catholic cathedral, church offices and a crypt \u2014 were an invasion of his privacy.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter all those years, I told my story to the (sex-abuse panel) insisting it not be shared,\u201d he said, adding that he was now willing to speak to the media because he was so distressed at the victims\u2019 loss of privacy.<\/p>\n Hertogen wants all 475 men and boys who contacted the panel with allegations of abuse to complain to the Brussels prosecutor\u2019s office and register as \u201cinjured parties.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So it looks like the Pope wasn\u2019t all wet when he protested Belgium\u2019s assault on due process. It even begins to appear that (surprise!) he had the good of victims in mind! Turns out the old guy may not be the monster people keep insisting he is, despite all evidence to the contrary.<\/p>\n Of course, Laurie Goodstein, who did such a spectacular job of bungling the hatchet job on Benedict during Lent, has to keep trying to prove otherwise (out of an objective love of truth, natch, and not out of an ideological need for payback after her shoddy job of reportage last time). So here she is again<\/a>, relying on Rembert Weakland and Geoffrey Robinson, whose orthodoxy is so dodgy even Mahony <\/em>denied him permission to speak in his diocese of LA<\/a>, as her principal witnesses in the ongoing journalistic trial and execution of Benedict XVI.<\/p>\n