(Then Priest Roger Vangheluwe serving Pope John Paul II in the 60′s)

Roger Vangheluwe, the longest serving Bishop in Belgium, resigned from his post Friday after admitting to sexually abusing “a young man in my close entourage” many years ago. In a statement issued by the Vatican on Friday, Vangheluwe, 73, the Bishop of Bruges since 1984, said that the abuse had occurred “when I was still a simple priest and for a while when I began as a bishop.”

On several occasions the Bishop said he asked the victim and his family to forgive him but the wound had not healed, “neither in me nor the victim, I am enormously sorry,” he said. Earlier this week, in a rare, direct comment on the issue, Pope Benedict XVI promised that the church would take action to deal with the crisis.

Bishop Vangheluwe is the first Belgian bishop to step down since the abuse scandal began to emerge months ago in several European countries, particularly Germany and Ireland.