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Pope Francis wrapped up a troubled visit to Belgium on Sunday with a Mass to beatify a 17th-century mystic, after dashing the hopes of one of Europe’s most storied Catholic universities by doubling down on his traditional views on women and abortion.
Francis was celebrating a Mass under a spectacular sun in Brussels’ sports stadium before heading back to Rome. The stadium is named for King Baudouin, whom Francis had praised for having abdicated for a day in 1990 rather than give his assent to a parliament-approved bill legalizing abortion.
Francis’ unscheduled visit to pray at the king’s tomb and declaration that the legislation was “homicidal” were among several gestures in this once staunchly Catholic country that unnerved its secularized young people, many of whom have turned away from the faith.
Nevertheless, the stadium — which had a capacity of 37,000 for the Mass — was nearly full for Francis' Mass. The crowd roared when Francis arrived in his popemobile and stopped to kiss babies passed up to him.
Sunday's Mass was to beatify Spanish nun Ana de Jesus, who made a vow of chastity at 10, entered religious life the following year and helped St. Teresa of Avila reform the Carmelite religious order. The Vatican is holding her up as a model of someone who lived through a time of scandal and brought people back to the faith.
Francis’ visit to Belgium was always going to be difficult, given the country’s wretched legacy of clerical sexual abuse and overall secularizing trends which have emptied its majestic cathedrals and churches.
But it’s unclear if he or his entourage expected such sharp public expressions of outrage from the king on down about the abuse scandal or the pointed calls for reform from Belgium's intellectual elite.
The main reason for the trip was to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the Leuven/Louvain Catholic University, the oldest Catholic university in the world and long the Vatican’s academic fiefdom in Belgium.
But the rector of the Dutch campus told Francis that the abuse scandal had so harmed the church’s moral authority that it would best reform if it wants to regain credibility and relevance. Rector Luc Sels suggested that opening up greater roles for women – including the priesthood – and being more welcoming to LGBTQ+ Catholics would be a good place to start.
Francis heard a similar call from the Francophone campus, where students staged a reading of an articulated critique of Francis’ landmark environmental encyclical “Praised Be” in which they called for a “paradigm shift” in the way the church views women.
They noted that the encyclical virtually ignores women, cites no female theologians and contributes to their “invisibility” in the church and society. Women have long complained they have a second-class status in the church, barred from the priesthood and positions of power despite doing the lion’s share of the work educating the young, caring for the sick and passing on the faith.
Francis, an 87-year-old Argentine Jesuit, said he liked what they said. But he repeated his frequent refrain about women being the “fertile” nurturers who complement men, and that regardless “the church is woman.”
His words drew a remarkable rebuke from the Catholic university that invited him. As soon as he finished speaking, Louvain issued a statement expressing its “incomprehension and disapproval” of his views on women, which it said were “deterministic and reductive.”
“We cannot agree on his position for sure,” said rector Francoise Smets. “We are fighting against discrimination for women, and we would like women to have another role in the society and in the church also.”
Valentine Hendrix, a 22-year-old international relations masters student at Louvain, told reporters that students had hoped that Francis might respond positively to their appeal. While others applauded at the end of Francis' remarks, she refused and said his comments on abortion and women’s role meant that he had “given up on a committed dialogue.”
“We had expectations, even if we saw that he disappointed us in just a few hours,” she said.
Francis has made several reforms during his 11-year pontificate, allowing women to serve as acolytes, giving them the vote in his periodic synods, or meetings, appointing several women to high-ranking positions in the Vatican. He has said women must have greater decision-making roles in the church.
But he has ruled out ordaining women as priests and has refused so far to budge on demands to allow women to serve as deacons, who perform many of the same tasks as priests. He has taken the women’s issue off the table for debate at the Vatican’s upcoming three-week synod because it’s too thorny to be dealt with in such a short time. He has punted it to theologians and canonists to chew over into next year.
Francis addressed the issue during his meeting with Belgian clergy and nuns in which he acknowledged so many Belgians had fallen away from the church. The reform process, he said, must involve returning to the Gospel.
“It is not about prioritizing ‘fashionable’ reforms, but asking: ‘How can we bring the Gospel to a society that is no longer listening or has distanced itself from the faith?’ Let us all ask ourselves this question,” he said.
