The beatification of the Dutch Jesuit father Frans van der Lugt, who was murdered in Syria in 2014, is off the table – and most likely permanently.
The Dutch Catholic weekly Katholiek Nieuwsblad broke the news after speaking with those directly involved in the process.
The main reason for this is that around 2009 or 2010, Van der Lugt is accused of having made trivializing statements about sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. When asked by a group of Western European visitors to his religious community in Homs, Syria, he said that he thought all the attention on Church abuse was exaggerated. He is also said to have questioned the impact abuse had on victims, as well as their credibility.
The visitors were shocked by the statements of the Dutch Jesuit and reported it to his superiors. An official reprimand is said not to have been given at the time because Van der Lugt fell ill shortly afterwards and was hospitalized. But there was a well-documented file that recently came to light during the preliminary investigation of the beatification process, according to a well-informed source within the Jesuit province of the Low Countries.
In April 2019, Father Pascual Cebollada told Katholiek Nieuwsblad that the Van der Lugts beatification process had been opened, and would possibly be completed within three or four years. Cebollada would function as postulator in the process, with the Dutch Jesuit Thom Sicking as vice-postulator.
The Jesuits had filed the case – the order’s superior general, Father Arturo Sosa, confirmed – and the bishop of Aleppo – who should formally start the process – was also said to have been enthusiastic.
However, the source said that in reality the bishop of Aleppo “has other things on his mind” in his war-torn country. Also, there is said to be little enthusiasm in the diocese of Aleppo for the beatification of just that one foreigner, while many tens of thousands of Syrians died in the civil war.
Because of the lack of support and especially because of Van der Lugts belittling statements about abuse, the Jesuits have decided to discontinue the cause – in all likelihood permanently.
Instead, the order is now focusing on the cause of another Dutch missionary who lost his life in the Middle East: Delft-born Father Nico Kluiters, who was murdered in Lebanon in 1985. His beatification process was scheduled to be fficially opened on Saturday.
There is also a formal reason for his rapid beatification being more likely than Van der Lugt’s: In Kluiters’ case, the perpetrators and motives are known. He was clearly murdered in odium fidei, out of hatred against the Christian faith, which in the Catholic Church is a reason for a kind of accelerated process of beatification or canonization.
With Frans van der Lugt, this is not so evident. The Hague-born Jesuit, who had worked in the Middle East since 1964, was shot to death in Homs on April 7, 2014. To this day, the perpetrator or perpetrators and motives are unknown, but it is likely that he was killed for political rather than religious reasons.
Van der Lugt, who was very popular with both Christians and Muslims in the region, refused to take sides and condemn Syrian President Al-Assad; an unpopular position in Homs, which was controlled by Syrian rebels at the time. It does not make his witness any less courageous or impressive, but it is now not seen as a reason for a shortcut to beatification.
