Pope Francis is embarking on yet another papal trip—this time, to Belgium, where the Catholic Church is far from free of challenges. One of its main concerns is numbers, which is something the Pope has spoken out about, for example in 2021 with the European bishops.
POPE FRANCIS
This may also be our problem: devoting energy to studying the different positions of the Church, debates, agendas and strategies, and losing sight of the true program, that of the Gospel: the impulse of charity, the ardor of gratuitousness.
In Belgium, although more than two-thirds of the population is Catholic, the vast majority are non-practicing. Since 2017, Sunday Mass attendance has declined by 44%. And many of the religious buildings have been converted.
One example is this church that belonged to the Franciscan Friars Minor until 2006, when it was renovated into a luxury hotel. But it does not stop there. The difficulty of maintaining the parishes led the Church of St. Anthony of Padua in Brussels to become a rock climbing wall.
But the attendance numbers is not the only concern—it is also the lack of pastoral workers. In six years, Belgium has lost 915 diocesan priests. More than half of those remaining are over 75 years old. Now, a significant percentage of the clergy in Belgium move there from other countries.
While in Belgium, Pope Francis will also address abuse—a topic he did not shy away from on the flight back from his trip to Asia.
POPE FRANCIS
We must speak clearly about these things and not hide. The work against abuse is something we all have to do: but not only against sexual abuse, but against all kinds of abuse: social abuse, educational abuse, changing people's mentality, taking away their freedom…Abuse is, in my opinion, something demonic, because every kind of abuse destroys the dignity of a person.
Although the Vatican has not confirmed it, the Belgian Bishops' Conference indicated that there will be a private meeting between Pope Francis and 15 survivors of abuse.
One of the scandals that marks the Church in Belgium is that of the former Archbishop of Bruges, whom Pope Francis expelled from the priesthood in March after he was found guilty of child abuse.
The Vatican says that it could be expected for Pope Francis to address the abuse cases during some of his speeches in Belgium.
But the official reason for the Pope's trip is to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the Catholic University of Louvain, which was divided into two in 1970: the Flemish and the French. The linguistic dispute in Belgium is another of the country's major problems; an issue that has led to decades of political and social disagreements among locals.
During his visit, Pope Francis will also bring attention to what has been one of the main priorities of his papacy: migration. He will hold a meeting at the university with refugees who have arrived in Belgium.
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