A tired Pope Francis is expected to arrive in Luxembourg September 26. On Monday, many of his appointments were canceled due to a “slight flu,” and the following day’s appointments were limited to a single official meeting with the bishops of Mozambique.
However, at his weekly general audience September 25, Francis appeared smiling in St. Peter’s Square. The 87-year-old pope, who returned 12 days ago from the longest trip of his pontificate in Southeast Asia and Oceania, will honor the invitation extended to him one year ago by the King and Queen of Belgium. But why this choice when Francis recently urged the Catholic Church to shift its focus away from Europe?
First, out of friendship. The trip begins with a brief stop in Luxembourg to visit his close collaborator, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, a member of the influential Council of Cardinals and rapporteur of the Synod of Bishops on synodality, whose work resumes on October 2. Francis is then expected to arrive in Brussels on Thursday evening, where he will deliver five speeches before presiding over a concluding Mass September 29.
Peace, refugees, and climate
Should we expect a major speech on secularization? The pope knows he is about to address one of the European societies where the practice of Catholicism has declined the most in recent years. “Today, secularization is a theme, but perhaps even more so is the challenge of Christian life, of Christian witness in a time when Christianity is less known than in the past,” Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican Press Office, said at a September 23 press conference.
In both Luxembourg and Brussels, Francis is not expected to visit the European Union institutions — “He has already visited the Parliament in Strasbourg (in 2014, Ed.),” Bruni said. However, he is expected at the Catholic University of Leuven, which is celebrating its 600th anniversary this year. This is the true purpose of the trip and he is scheduled to visit this institution twice, which has been split for 50 years between a Dutch-speaking and a French-speaking section. On Friday, he will meet with academics for a discussion on the theme of refugees at KU Leuven, located in Flanders, where the far-right party topped the polls in the European elections.
The next day, he will travel to Louvain-la-Neuve, in Wallonia, to meet students from UCLouvain, eager to hear him speak about possible action on climate change and question him on this issue, as well as on the role of women in the church and society, according to sources.
The challenge of Christian witness
During his four days in Belgium, Francis is also expected to meet — behind closed doors — with 15 victims of sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy. This initiative was announced September 13 by the country’s bishops’ conference, as the subject has garnered renewed public interest following the broadcast of a documentary on Flemish channel VRT in autumn 2023 that featured testimonies from victims.
Further reading: Belgium: Church defends against discrimination claims after refusing training of women deacons
Another sensitive issue in Belgium: forced adoptions. Between 1945 and 1980, thousands of Belgian women were sent to give birth in religious institutions, and their children were later sold to adoptive families, according to an investigation by the Flemish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.
No public statement or action from the pope has been announced, but Francis could be confronted with it. Thirty-nine years ago, the student representative from Louvain-la-Neuve, Véronique Oruba, decided not to stick to the text approved by the university and the Holy See, advocating before St. John Paul II for the church to stop marginalizing couples who use contraception.
Source link : https://international.la-croix.com/religion/refugees-sexual-abuse-the-challenges-of-the-popes-trip-to-belgium-and-luxembourg
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Publish date : 2024-09-26 10:38:09
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