Belgium’s Catholic Church sought yesterday to heal deep wounds caused to victims of paedophile priests, vowing to listen to those hurt by a scandal that has caused “much pain” to Pope Benedict XVI.

But the plan unveiled by Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, the head of the Belgian church, disappointed groups representing victims three days after a report revealed an avalanche of abuse cases that led to 13 suicides.

Archbishop Leonard told a news conference the Church would act to grant victims of sexual abuse by priests or church workers “maximum” access to officials, but did not spell out how audiences would be obtained or what could be delivered.

He announced vague plans to create a centre for “recognition, reconciliation and healing” within the Church, with a target date for opening of Christmas.

In a bid to restore personal trust, “the first thing we have to regain”, Archbishop Leonard said the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Belgium has to “listen” to victims and parishioners.

That followed the admission by a bishop who quit that he paid a victim and persistent media allegations of a Church cover-up.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the Pope was following the situation in Belgium “very closely” after the report by a Church-sponsored commission which revealed decades of abuse by Belgian priests.

“Like everybody, he feels much pain after the publication of the report, which again reveals the huge suffering of victims and gives us an even more vivid sense of the gravity of the crimes,” Mr Lombardi told RTL-TVI television.

Following a string of similar scandals notably in Germany, Ireland and the United States, the dam broke in Belgium in April when the disgraced bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, quit having admitted sexually abusing his nephew between 1973 and 1986.

Bishop Vangheluwe announced on Sunday that he would now leave the Westvleteren abbey where he had sought refuge for several months to withdraw “to another place, away from the Bruges diocese”.

“As my regrets have only increased, now I see all the harm that my actions caused,” he said then.

Asked if the Pope would defrock former bishop Vangheluwe, Fr Lombardi said Pope Benedict could consider such a sanction but a decision has not been taken.

“It is a decision that rests solely with the Pope,” the spokesman said.

For his part Archbishop Leonard reiterated a call for guilty priests and Church workers to confess their crimes as well as their sins, saying past pleas to come forward had “not really been heard”.

In a bid to “learn the lessons of the errors of the past,” the Archbishop said the new, open-door policy was aimed at re-establishing victims’ “dignity” and helping “to heal the suffering they have endured”.