Pope in Belgium calls for peace, condemns abuse and forced adoptions

By Elise Ann Allen

BRUSSELS – After arriving in Belgium in the rain on Thursday evening, Pope Francis the next day told civil authorities to make peacebuilding a priority and expressed regret over recent scandals in the Belgian Church, including the crises of spiritual sexual abuse and forced adoptions.

In his address to national civil authorities on September 27, the Pope emphasized the Church’s contribution to society through her works of charity, but acknowledged that the Church must also take into account “the vulnerability and shortcomings of its members, which are never fully against the task entrusted to her. because it is always beyond their capabilities.”

Although the Church is often a force for good, he said, “it lives in a specific culture, within the thinking of a certain age, which it sometimes helps to shape and to which it is at other times subjected; and its members do not always understand and live the message of the Gospel in all its purity and fullness.”

To this end, Pope Francis referred to the ecclesiastical abuse scandals that have marred the Church in Belgium. He said abuse “is a scourge that the Church is tackling decisively and decisively by listening to and accompanying those who have been injured, and by implementing a preventive approach. program around the world.”

In an off-the-cuff remark, he called the abuse scandals a source of “shame” for the church.

“We think of the time of the Holy Innocents, and we think: what a tragedy, what the king did! But today, in the same church, this crime is happening, and the church should be ashamed and try to resolve the situation with Christian humility and do everything it can to prevent this from happening again,” he said.

Noting that research shows that most abuse takes place in the family, in sports or in education, he said that in the church: “If there is only one, it is enough to be ashamed… this is our shame and our humiliation.”

He also said he was “saddened” to hear about the forced adoption scandals in Belgium in the 1950s, 1970s and 1980s.

“In those moving stories we see how the bitter fruits of misconduct and criminality became mixed with what was unfortunately the prevailing view in all parts of society at the time. This was so much the case that many believed in conscience that they were doing something good for both the child and the mother,” he said.

Both the Church and other social actors, he said, were convinced that in order to overcome the stigma attached to unmarried motherhood at the time, it was felt that “for the good of both the child and the mother that the child should be given would be put up for adoption.”

“There were even cases where some women were not given the option to choose between keeping their children or putting them up for adoption,” he said, adding that this still happens in some cultures today.

Pope Francis prayed that God would help the Church in every age find the strength “never to conform to the dominant culture, even when that culture manipulatively uses values ​​derived from the Gospel, drawing from them inauthentic conclusions that suffer cause. and exclusion.”

In recent years, the Catholic Church in Belgium has had to cope not only with the challenges of living in one of Europe’s most secular countries, but also with the fallout from clergy sex abuse and forced adoption scandals.

Belgium has been particularly hard hit by the abuse scandals, including the high-profile case of Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who was laicized by the Vatican in March. After allegations first came to light in 2010, Vangheluwe later admitted to several acts of sexual abuse, including some against his own cousins.

Recordings also emerged of the former Archbishop of Brussels, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, apparently discouraging one of Vangheluwe’s cousins ​​from making his accusations public, with the leaks creating public impressions of a systematic cover-up.

Last year, Dutch Belgium was shocked by the broadcast of a television documentary entitled Godvergeten, or ‘Godforgotten’, which documented several cases of abuse by Catholic priests, attracting massive attention.

That broadcast led to a new parliamentary investigation in Flanders, and in May there was widespread opposition in Brussels after three priests accused of abuse were placed on a list of candidates for the archdiocese’s presbyteral council. Archbishop Luc Terlinden apologized and called it a ‘serious mistake’.

Pope Francis will meet 15 victims of abuse in Belgium, but details have not yet been released.

Forced adoptions in Belgium have also increased pressure on the Catholic Church in recent years.

In the 1950s to 1980s, nuns’ institutions took in underage girls and unmarried women and gave their children up for adoption.

An estimated 30,000 children were taken from their mothers and sold to adoptive families without their mothers’ knowledge or consent, with some mothers denied the right to see their children, while others were told their children were stillborn.

The Belgian bishops apologized in 2023 and requested an independent investigation after new testimonies emerged from women and individuals who claimed to have been sold to their adoptive families by the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis spoke to Belgian national authorities on Friday after holding a private audience with King Philippe and Prime Minister Alexander De Croo earlier that morning.

In his speech, the Pope praised the role Belgium played in the peace process after the Second World War, and the role the country has taken on as a ‘bridge’ between nations and peoples.

“How Europe needs Belgium to remind it that its history includes peoples and cultures, cathedrals and universities, achievements of human ingenuity, but also many wars and the will to dominate that sometimes led to colonialism and exploitation,” he said.

Europe needs Belgium to follow the path of peace and brotherhood, he said.

To that end, Francis said Belgium serves as “a reminder to all others that when nations ignore borders or violate treaties using the most diverse and untenable excuses, and when they use weapons to replace actual law with the principle of ‘might is right’ ‘, then they open Pandora’s box and unleash violent storms that ravage the house and threaten to destroy it.’

In a ready-made remark, the Pope said: “Belgium is currently playing a very important role. We are very close to a world war.”

Peace and harmony, he said, are “never won once and for all,” but require consistent efforts to maintain them with care and patience.

“If people forget the memory of the past and its valuable lessons, they run the dangerous risk of falling back again even after they have moved on, forgetting the suffering and terrible costs paid by previous generations,” said he.

Belgium, Pope Francis said, can serve as a living memory for Europe and can also ensure continued, timely social and political development that is “both courageous and wise” and that also “excludes the idea and practice of war from the future.” a viable option with all the catastrophic consequences that entails.”

He urged Belgium to set an example for Europe by recovering its “true identity” and reinvesting in the future “by opening itself to life and hope by overcoming the demographic winter and the torments of war !”

“We have to be practical about this, have children, have children!” he said, after issuing a similar indictment to the citizens of Luxembourg on Thursday.

Francis concluded his speech with the hope that those who hold public office “would know how to assume the responsibility, the risk and the honor of peace, and know how to accept the danger, the shame and the absurdity of war can avoid.’

He also prayed that those in authority would fear “the judgment of conscience, of history and of God, so that their hearts and minds will be converted, so that they will, as always, put the common good first.”

He also reiterated his condemnation of the global arms trade, saying: “At this time when the economy has developed strongly, I would like to underline that in some countries the investment in weapons is the investment that yields the most profit.”