BRUSSELS – Pope Francis closed his visit to Belgium Sunday with the beatification of Spanish nun and missionary Anne of Jesus, telling Catholics in the country to be sources of charity rather than scandal. Yet the pontiff couldn’t escape continuing signs of discontent among some Belgian Catholics, including scattered protests at his Mass over the exclusion of women from the priesthood.
Speaking from the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels Sept. 29, the pope said that in the day’s Scripture readings, which warn that it would be better for those who cause scandal to be tossed into the sea with stones around their feet, “Jesus warns of the danger of scandal, that is, of hindering the path of the ‘little ones.’”
“It is a stern warning that calls us to pause and reflect,” he said, saying openness, communion and witness from Christians are needed if scandal is to be avoided.
Francis spoke on the last day of his Sept. 26-29 trip to Luxembourg and Belgium, where he has faced strong criticism from national authorities over the country’s clerical sexual abuse scandals and where the leadership at Catholic universities have called for progressive reforms such as the ordination of women priests, something Francis has repeatedly said won’t happen, as well as broader openness to LGBTQ+ individuals.
Throughout his visit the pope has been outspoken on the need to be ashamed of the church’s abuse crisis and to implement reforms, and he returned to the theme Sunday.
“With my heart, I return to the stories of some of these little ones that I met the day before yesterday. I heard them, I heard their experience of abuse, and I repeat it here: in the church there is room for everyone, everyone, everyone, but we will all be judged, and there is no room for abuse,” he said.
“There is no space fo he coverup of abuse. I ask everyone, don’t cover up abuse! I ask bishops, don’t cover up abuse! Condemn abusers and help them to heal from this sickness of abuse,” Francis said. “Evil must not be hidden, it must be in the open, discovered, as some of the abused did with courage…so that the abuser is judged, whether they be a layman or a laywoman, a priest or a bishop, that they be judged. The word of God is clear.”
That language drew applause, but on another front, the pope’s treatment of the role of women in the church, some Belgians weren’t so pleased. During the Sunday Mass, every time a woman took the microphone, some women in the crowd stood dressed in white as a protest over the refusal to ordain female priests.
The gesture came a day after the Catholic University of Louvain publicly upbraided Francis for expressing positions on the role of women it called “deterministic and reductive.”
Yes despite the tension, the stadium was full for the pope’s Mass, his final event in Belgium, including large numbers of enthusiastic young people.
In his homily during the Mass, his final event in Belgium, Pope Francis pointed to the day’s readings, which mention the Holy Spirit’s presence among a gathering of elders led by Moses, as well as two men who had stayed behind.
“At first, the absence of the two men from the group of the elect was a cause of scandal. After the Spirit rested upon them, however, it becomes scandalous to forbid them from exercising the mission they had indeed received,” he said.
He also noted how in the Gospel, the disciples want to forbid a man from Capernaum from casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Jesus surprises them by telling them to let the man continue, saying, “he that is not against us is for us.”
Jesus invites the disciples not to be “scandalized by the freedom of God,” he said, saying the accounts of both Moses and Jesus speak to modern Christian life.
Each Christian, by virtue of their baptism, has received a mission in the church as a gift that must be embraced and lived, but must not be a reason to boast, he said.
“The community of believers is not a select circle of a privileged few; it is the family of those who are saved,” he said, saying Christians “have been sent into the world to preach the Gospel based not on our own merits, but by the grace of God.”
In order to cooperate with the Holy Spirit freely, “without being a source of scandal or an obstacle to those around us through our arrogance or rigidity,” Francis said, believers “must carry out our mission with humility, gratitude and joy.”
The pope stressed the importance of communion, saying the day’s second reading issues a clear message on both “riches that corrupt” and the protests of harvesters that “have reached the ears of the Lord.”
This is a reminder, he said, “that the only path that leads to life is that of self-donation, of love that unites through giving of oneself.”
“The path of selfishness generates closedmindedness, walls and obstacles – we can call them ‘scandals’ – that chain us down to material things and separate us from God and from our brothers and sisters,” he said.
Selfishness, the pope said, impedes charity and is therefore scandalous “because it crushes those who are little. It humiliates people in their dignity and suppresses the cry of the afflicted.”
“What would happen if we were to put self-interest and market mentalities as the sole foundations for communities and individuals?” he asked, saying the answer is that “there would no longer be space for those who are in need, nor mercy for those who make mistakes, nor compassion for those who suffer and cannot move forward in life.”
He pointed to undocumented migrants who often end up as victims of exploitation in their pursuit of a better life, saying their cries “cannot be ignored.”
“We cannot simply erase them, as if they were the discordant note in a perfect concert performed in a perfect world,” he said, saying their cries also should not be stifled by “superficial attempts of social assistance.”
It is the poor and vulnerable who are the “living voice of the spirit,” he said, “because they remind us that we are all poor sinners called to conversion. We must not suffocate this prophetic voice or silence it by our indifference.”
Pope Francis noted that in the Gospels, Jesus condemns the “scandal” of eyes that look the other way, hands that stash away one’s riches, and feet that run from those who suffer rather than to them.
“We must leave this mentality behind! Nothing good or solid can be built upon it!” he said, stressing the need to also “sow seeds for the future” at the economic and social levels.
To do this, he said, Christians must “put the Gospel of mercy at the foundation of our choices.”
Francis stressed the importance of bearing witness, pointing to several Belgian saints and missionaries who proclaimed God’s word, some at the cost of their lives. He cited Anne of Jesus, who he beatified during Sunday’s Mass, saying she followed in the steps of Saint Teresa of Avila and was “among the protagonists of a great reform movement.”
“In a time marked by painful scandals, within and outside of the Christian community, she and her companions brought many people back to the faith through their simple lives of poverty, prayer, work and charity,” he said.
The pope urged believers to welcome her example of “feminine styles of holiness, gentle but strong.”
This remark comes after Pope Francis faced blowback for his remarks on women during a speech at the Catholic University of Louvain Saturday, telling students that women “What characterizes women, that which is truly feminine, is not stipulated by consensus or ideologies, just as dignity itself is ensured not by laws written on paper, but by an original law written on our hearts.”
He also condemned instances when “a woman wants to be a man” – remarks that drew criticism from the university itself, and from students in attendance.
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