A man greets Pope Francis outside the French-speaking UCLouvain campus in Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium, September 28. Founded in 1425, the world’s oldest Catholic university was celebrating its 600th anniversary. Photo: CNS/Lola Gomez Thomas O’Reilly
A four-day visit to Belgium by Pope Francis acted as the perfect bellwether in what many regard as Western Europe’s most secular country as greater than-expected numbers flocked to see the Pontiff, dissuaded by showery weather and a last-minute attempt by political elites to dredge up abuse scandals. In the first papal visit to Belgium since John Paul II in 1985, the Pontiff called for “honourable compromises” from world leaders as he warned that peace was threatened even in Europe by a spate of emerging conflicts engulfing the globe.
While without the institutionalised laïcité of its French neighbour the Belgian state nonetheless maintains a broadly secular civil outlook with the domestic Church rocked by abuse scandals culminating in the shock resignation of Bishop of Bruges Roger Vangheluwe in 2010.
Hope
Speaking ahead of the visit, spokesman for the Belgian Bishops’ Conference Fr Tommy Scholtes expressed hope of religious renewal describing how the country’s inherent cosmopolitan nature including the presence of EU and NATO headquarters as well as a substantial Islamic community made Brussels somewhat unusual terrain for the papacy.
Landing in Luxembourg on Thursday before making his way north for an audience with King Philippe of Belgium at the royal palace of Laekan in northern Brussels the Pope met with victims of clerical abuse vowing that the institutional coverups of the past will never be repeated.
In a tour defined by much greater than expected public interest and awakening by young Catholics, both the international and domestic media were keen to highlight comments made by Belgium’s liberal prime minister Alexander De Croo around clerical abuse as the prospect of financial compensation was raised.
Thousands of mainly young Catholics lined the streets around Saint Peter’s Church in Leuven for a glimpse of the Pontiff last Thursday afternoon”
While touring the historic Catholic university town of Leuven for its 600th anniversary, the Pope and Vatican officials articulated the continued importance of Belgium’s Christian inheritance when dealing with issues such as social inequality and climate change.
Thousands of mainly young Catholics lined the streets around St Peter’s Church in Leuven for a glimpse of the Pontiff last Thursday afternoon despite claims by members of the university’s faculty that secular authorities within the university were attempting to sabotage or overlook the papal visit.
Degradation
Inside the university hall, Pope Francis engaged with students in a dialogue on his Laudato Si’ encyclical which focused on environmental degradation as a product of theological decay warning against “a rationalism devoid of wonder that reduces life to the measurable” when it came to modern consumerism.
Outside of the event, I spoke to young Catholics as well as many of their secular colleagues in the shadow of a memorial to the French priest and humanitarian Fr Joseph Wresinski about what drove them to risk the inclement September weather.
Perhaps the only positive mainstream media coverage of the trip came on Saturday morning when Pope Francis made a surprise visit to the relatively impoverished Saint-Gilles parish”
Referencing an unexpected stampede to get tickets that left many even within his religious order unable to attend, Indian-born Dominican, Bro Jason from a nearby convent in Leuven, described the Belgian trip by Pope Francis as “culturally and religiously significant” as well as helping to stir the faith, particularly among young Catholics.
Connection
Leuven’s Irish connection was also raised in conversation by students with the university town playing host to the internationally renowned Irish College founded by Franciscans fleeing from the Nine Years’ War in the 17th Century.
Regardless of its Catholic inheritance and perhaps the wishes of its Franciscan founders, the Irish College itself spent the day of the papal visit opening its doors to a Buddhist conference and a meeting of international urologists when the author chanced a quick visit before the Pope’s arrival to Leuven.
Saturday saw Pope Francis address a meeting of Catholic civil society organisations and EU officials at the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Koekelberg as the Pontiff again asked for contrition following meetings with survivors of clerical sex abuse.
While Pope John Paul II was afforded speaking time at the European Parliament during his visit in 1985, Pope Francis had to make do with brief meetings with two EU Commissioners Margarítis Schinás and Dubravka Šuica.
The culmination of the Papal visit came on Sunday at Roi Baudouin Stadium where just under 40,000 Catholics attended a morning Mass presided over by the Holy Father”
Perhaps the only positive mainstream media coverage of the trip came on Saturday morning when Pope Francis made a surprise visit to the relatively impoverished St-Gilles parish to breakfast with undocumented migrants and the homeless community, taking time to learn about their plight individually.
In an area riven by recent violence between rival Algerian and Moroccan gangs the Pope heard from one African refugee about a crisis of faith they had suffered after traversing the Mediterranean and arriving at the Italian island of Lampedusa.
The culmination of the Papal visit came on Sunday at Roi Baudouin Stadium where just under 40,000 Catholics attended a morning Mass presided over by the Pope.
Punctured
For a brief window, the grey secularism of the Belgian capital was punctured by a celebration of the Eucharist that united Catholics not just in the fractured European kingdom but from around the world.
In a country divided into the binary of Wallonia and Flanders, railway lines around the Brussels stadium were festooned with Belgian tricolours and international flags ranging from Albania to Paraguay as tickets were immediately sold out hours after going on sale earlier in the week.
The community of believers is not a select circle of a privileged few; it is the family of those who are saved”
The Sunday Mass was dedicated to the canonisation of Spanish-born nun Anne of Jesus who brought St Teresa of Avila’s reform of the Carmelite Order to Belgium and most of the Low Countries with Pope Francis praising the continuum of Catholic saints who had operated in Belgium such as St Damien de Veuster, St Guy of Anderlecht, and St Gudula.
“The community of believers is not a select circle of a privileged few; it is the family of those who are saved,” declared the Pope in his homily as crowds thronged the arrival of the Popemobile to the stadium’s altar.
Surprise
To the surprise of many following Sunday Mass official Vatican sources confirmed that the beautification process would begin on Belgian’s King Baudoin who governed the country in the post-war period and who was known for his devout Catholic faith as well as opposition to abortion, for which he was briefly removed from the throne in 1990.
In a city defined more by dry European Commission protocol and the goings on of NATO, the Gospel message took to the streets in an act of defiance against Belgian elites and the Christ free society they had created.
Against the backdrop of a moribund Belgian administrative state and an ethnically heterogenous capital city Catholic solidarity appeared once more in a region forged by the faith of monks and missionaries centuries before.
If elites had wanted to use the occasion of the papal visit as an ecclesiastical punching bag what they found instead was an increasingly youthful Church more adept at addressing the problems of the modern world than its secular counterparts. Within Brussels small mustard seeds are stirring showing signs that even in what was formerly little Catholic Belgium spiritual renewal has begun.