Pope concludes troubled visit to Belgium by praising victims and demanding abusers brought to justice | World

BRUSSELS (AP) — Pope Francis demanded Sunday that sexually abusing clerics be brought to justice and that their bishops stop covering up their crimes. He ended a troubled visit to Belgium by responding to outrage over the scandal here that has devastated the church’s credibility.

“Evil cannot be hidden. Evil must be exposed,” Francis told some 30,000 people at the Belgian sports stadium, drawing repeated applause as the crowd recorded what he said.

Francis deviated from his prepared homily to respond to the meeting he held Friday evening with seventeen abuse survivors, where he heard firsthand of the trauma and suffering they had endured and the church’s tone-deaf response when they reported the crimes.

Belgium has had a miserable legacy of abuse and cover-up, which is no more symbolic of the hypocrisy of the church than the case of the Bruges bishop Roger Vangheluwe. He was allowed to quietly retire in 2010 after admitting that he had sexually abused his cousin for thirteen years.

Francis only removed him from office this year – fourteen years later – in a move clearly seen as a solution to a problem before his arrival in Belgium.

Once here he could not escape the criticism. Belgium’s king demanded the church work “relentlessly” to clean up the scandal, and the prime minister insisted the victims’ needs would come first, in a remarkable undressing of the once staunchly Catholic leadership. country.

“In the church there is room for everyone, everyone, but everyone is judged and there is no room for abuse. There is no room for covering up abuse,” Francis said in his homily. “I ask the bishops not to cover up abuse. Condemn the abusers and help them recover from this disease of abuse.”

Expressions of outrage from the Belgian leaders

Francis’ visit to Belgium was always going to be difficult, given the history of sexual abuse by clergy and the general secularizing trends that have emptied its majestic cathedrals and churches.

But it is unclear whether he or his entourage expected such sharp public expressions of outrage or the sharp calls for reform from the Belgian intellectual elite.

The main reason for the trip was to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the Catholic University of Leuven, the oldest Catholic university in the world and long the academic fiefdom of the Vatican in Belgium.

But the rector of the Dutch campus told Francis that the abuse scandal had so damaged the moral authority of the church that it would best reform if it wants to regain credibility and relevance. Rector Luc Sels suggested that opening up a greater role for women – including the priesthood – and welcoming LGBTQ+ Catholics would be a good starting point.

Francis heard a similar call from the French-speaking campus, where students delivered a reading of an articulate critique of his landmark environmental encyclical “Praised Be,” calling for a “paradigm shift” in the way the church views women.

They noted that the encyclical virtually ignores women, cites no female theologians and contributes to the “invisibility” of women in church and society. Women have long complained that they have a second-class status in the church, excluded from the priesthood and from positions of power, despite doing the lion’s share of the work: educating young people, caring for the sick and passing on the faith.

Catholic university rebukes the pope for his views on women

Francis, an 87-year-old Argentinian Jesuit, said he liked what they said. But he repeated his frequent refrain that women are the “fertile” caregivers who complement men, and that in any case “the church is woman.”

His words provoked a notable rebuke from the Catholic university that invited him. As soon as he finished speaking, Leuven released a statement expressing “misunderstanding and disapproval” of his views on women, which they said were “deterministic and limiting.”

“We cannot agree with certainty about his position,” says rector Françoise Smets. “We fight against discrimination against women and we want women to have a different role in society and also in the church.”

Valentine Hendrix, a 22-year-old master’s student in international relations in Leuven, told reporters that students had hoped Francis would respond positively to their call. While others applauded the end of Francis’ remarks, she balked, saying his comments on abortion and the role of women meant he had “abandoned committed dialogue.”

“We had expectations, even though we saw him disappoint us within a few hours,” she said.

Francis introduced several reforms during his 11-year pontificate, allowing women to serve as acolytes, giving them the right to vote in his periodic synods or assemblies, and appointing several women to high positions in the Vatican. He has said that women should have a greater decision-making role in the church.

But he has ruled out the ordination of women as priests and has so far refused to budge on demands to allow women to serve as deacons, who perform many of the same duties as priests. He has taken the women’s issue off the table for debate at the Vatican’s upcoming three-week synod, saying it is too touchy to deal with in such a short time. He has submitted it to theologians and canonists to chew on next year.

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