Pope’s trip to Luxembourg, Belgium holds different nuances

ROME – As Pope Francis prepares to travel to Luxembourg and Belgium this week despite a mild cold, his trip will feature several important underlying themes as he sets foot in one of Europe’s most secular nations and prepares to deliver messages to a continent marred by war.

Francis’s Sept. 26-29 visit to Luxembourg and Belgium will mark his 46th international trip as pope, with a total of 77 countries visited since his election to the papacy in 2013.

Though he is primarily making the voyage for the 600th anniversary of the founding of the Universities of Leuven and Louvain, given the presence of important EU institutions in both places and recent abuse scandals that have challenged the church amid an already tenuous landscape given the rapid growth of secularism, all of these themes are expected to be present at some level in what the pope says and does.

Speaking to journalists during a Sept. 23 press briefing about the trip, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said, “Secularization is an issue, but more so perhaps is the challenge of Christian witness in a Europe where Christianity is less known than in the past, full of questions, many unexpressed, with a perception of decline.”

“There are already attempts to respond to these matters within these communities that will be encouraged by the pope,” he said.

While some 57 percent of Belgium’s population is Catholic, the rate of active participation in Sunday Mass sits at just 6-10 percent.

The church in Belgium also faces significant social challenges, as the country was the second in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2003, and it has become a global destination for those seeking euthanasia – which was legalized in Belgium in 2002 and allows foreigners to submit a request to end their lives in the country.

Belgium is also one of very few countries where euthanasia is available for those with “unbearable suffering” caused by a psychiatric disorder or dementia. Belgium became the first country to legalize euthanasia for children in 2014 with no minimum age requirement, but with stipulations for written consent from the parents.

According to Bruni, in addition to whatever message Pope Francis will offer to a secularized world, he will also carry a message to countries that host “the headquarters of various European institutions, especially of a financial nature,” a reference to the global fund industry in Luxembourg, and “the seat of a large part of the EU administration,” as Belgium is home to the headquarters of the European Commission.

These countries are “a part of the world that others look to,” meaning the pope’s words will be “spoken to the heart of Europe” in light of “the role it wants to play in the world in the near future,” Bruni said.

To this end, he pointed to the pope’s previous speeches to the EU during his 2014 visit to Strasbourg, when Francis famously called Europe a “grandmother” that has lost its vibrancy and creativity, as well as his speech of acceptance for the Charlemagne Prize in 2016, where he reiterated that comparison, saying Europe has become “weary” and “entrenched” and has lost contact with its Christian roots and its founding principles.

Bruni said the pope’s message will likely focus on the role Europe can play going forward in becoming a place of welcome and solidarity between all nations and noted that some nations have become “victims” of occupation and destruction.

To this end, Bruni said the topic of peace will also likely be a key underlying theme, as Francis will be visiting places that worked hard to achieve peace following the Second World War at a time when the European continent is again marred by the violent conflict in Ukraine.

Pope Francis is also expected to address environmental issues and migration, as well as the role of Catholic education in an era of rapid technological growth.

During a meeting with professors at the Catholic University of Louvain, he will show a video on humanitarian assistance to refugees, which Bruni said was a timely message for Belgium given the challenge of migration in recent years and the presence of refugees in university institutions.

The pope’s meetings with the world of academia, Bruni said, will give him an opportunity to deliver a message on “what Christianity still has to say to European culture.”

There is also a strong connection between the Catholic University of Louvain and the Second Vatican Council, as the university even before the council began was seen as a forerunner of the empowerment of the laity by virtue of their baptism and their training as theologians.

In 1970, the university established the Centre for the Study of the Second Vatican Council, which still operates today with the aim of collecting materials documenting the history of the Council and advancing and support ongoing research of it.

Likewise, the Catholic University of Leuven holds longstanding close ties to the liberation theology movement that has become popular throughout much of Latin America, and it still has a Center for Liberation Theologies which serves as “a platform for theological research in liberative, contextual, critical theologies” through the organization of roundtables, discussion groups, lectures, workshops and seminars.

Another topic that will underlie the pope’s visit to Belgium is clerical abuse and the recent scandals that have hit Belgium, including the notorious case of Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who was laicized by the Vatican in March. After charges first surfaced in 2010, Vangheluwe eventually admitted to several acts of sexual abuse, including some against his own nephews.

Francis is expected to meet with 15 survivors of sexual abuse while in Belgium, six men and nine women, for an encounter that has not yet been announced in order to ensure the privacy of participants.

Bruni told journalists Monday that as is usual practice, they will announce the meeting afterwards and, “in agreement with the victims, we will provide information on it later.”

On the charges against Vangheluwe and in terms of the impact the scandal surrounding him has had on Belgian society, Bruni said Pope Francis “is aware of the pain, drama, and suffering in Belgium, and we can certainly expect references to this.”

Francis will be joined on his visit by Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, and Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, will be in attendance.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin will not join him on the trip, as Parolin will instead be in New York representing the Holy See at the 79th UN General Assembly.

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