Pope Francis will visit Luxembourg and Belgium, two of Europe’s traditionally Catholic countries, from Sept. 26 to 29, where he is expected to speak about war and peace, the migrant crisis, ecology and secularization. He is also likely to speak about the sexual abuse of minors by clergy, a scandal that damaged the Catholic church’s standing in Belgium in 2010, and to a lesser extent in Luxembourg that same year.
It will be Francis’ 46th foreign journey since becoming pope in March 2013, and the second this month after his 12-day visit to Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Singapore and Papua New Guinea.
He will be accompanied by two cardinals, Robert Prevost, the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, and Marcello Semeraro, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, substitute for the Secretariat of State, and Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Secretary for Relations with States, will also accompany the pope on this journey. So too will his security detail, medical staff and 61 journalists from the international media, including America’s Vatican correspondent.
Luxembourg is the 56th country that Francis has visited. It is a landlocked state bordered by Germany, France and the Netherlands, with a population of 654,000, almost half of whom are migrants from 161 countries.
Francis in Luxembourg
Francis is the second pope to visit Luxembourg and, like John Paul II in 1985, will spend one day here at the invitation of the Grand Duke Henri and Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, S.J., who is a member of his council of cardinal advisors and, as relator general, has a central role in the Synod on Synodality that opens in the Vatican next week.
The motto of Francis’ visit is “Pour servir” (to serve). He will travel by ITA Airways from Rome to Luxembourg International Airport on the morning of Sept. 26, and will be welcomed by the Grand Duke, Cardinal Hollerich and 100 young people. After the welcome ceremony, he will be driven to the Grand Ducal Palace where he will have a private conversation with the Grand Duke and meet his family. Afterward, he will have a private meeting with the prime minister, Luc Frieden, a member of the Christian Social People’s Party. The Grand Duke will then accompany him to the Cercle Cité, a convention and exhibition center, where he will address an audience of 300 people from the state authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps.
He will have lunch and rest at the archbishop’s residence, and in the afternoon will greet the Catholic community at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Ten thousand people asked to attend but only some 400 could be accommodated inside the church, with around 800 people outside. The Grand Duke will be present and will later bid Pope Francis farewell at the airport as he sets out for Belgium.
Background on Luxembourg
The history of Luxembourg dates back to 963 C.E., when Siegfried, Count of the Ardennes acquired a fort around which a town gradually developed and became the center of a state of great strategic value. His successors gained much power and wealth. One of them, Henry V, became the Holy Roman Emperor in 1312, and exercised much power in the following 130 years. For the next 320 years Luxembourg remained under the House of Habsburg. Then France ruled it from 1794 to 1815, but after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, the Duchy of Luxembourg was restored.
Like Belgium, it suffered much during World War I and World War II, when Germany invaded the country. It became a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and of NATO in 1949. Then, in the 1950s, together with Belgium, it became one of the six founding countries of the European Communities that led to the establishment of the European Union in 1993.
In the early 20th century, the steel industry drove Luxembourg’s economy. When that declined in the 1970s, the country focused on establishing itself as a global financial center and banking hub—today it has more than 150 banks, and is one of the financial centers of Europe, with a high per-capita GDP.
Christianity first grew in Luxembourg from the city of Trier, along the Roman roads in the late 3rd century, but only spread in the country at the end of the 7th century. Approximately 40 percent of the population of Luxembourg is Catholic, including the Grand Duke Henri and his family. Two percent are Muslim, while 27 percent profess no religion.
Luxembourg was for many years “a very Catholic nation, with strong Christian politicians, lots of processions and strong devotion to Mary the Consoler at the cathedral,” Emmanuel Van Lierde, the former editor-in-chief of Tertio, the Belgian Christian weekly, told me on the eve of the visit. But around 2010, he said, as fallout from sexual abuse by clergy exploded in neighboring countries, people in Luxembourg began to ask questions about their own church. The then-Archbishop Fernand Franck and the then-Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker asked the public to come forward if they had suffered from sexual abuse by clergy. More than 100 people came forward in one month. “This shocked the nation and changed everything,” Mr. Van Lierde said.
Benedict XVI called Archbishop Hollerich from Japan to be the new archbishop, and he entered into this turbulent situation. In the subsequent election, the new Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel and his Democratic Party governed with a coalition of Socialists and Greens. He tore up the concordat that had been in place since the time of Napoleon, which stated that the state would pay priests.
Francis in Belgium
Later on Sept. 26, Pope Francis will take a one-hour flight to Brussels, the capital of Belgium. He previously visited the country on a number of occasions during his time as the Jesuit provincial of Argentina.
On his arrival at Melsbroek Air Base, just after 7:00 p.m. local time, he will be welcomed by King Philippe and QueenMathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz. Afterwards he will be driven to the nunciature (the Vatican embassy) in Brussels, where he will reside during his sojourn in this city of 2.1 million people, a city that is also the headquarters of the European Union.
During his three-day stay, his first stop will be in the Flemish part of the country. On Friday morning, Sept. 27, he will travel about seven miles from the city center to the neo-Gothic Castle of Laeken, to pay a courtesy visit to the King and Queen of Belgium. After a private conversation with the monarch, he will meet the prime minister, Alexander De Croo, before addressing an audience of 300 people composed of the Belgian authorities, representatives of civil society and the diplomatic corps.
That afternoon, he will go to the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (the Catholic University of Louvain) that was founded by Pope Martin V in 1425. The university, which celebrates its 600th anniversary next year, is the main reason that Francis has come to Belgium. The Université Catholique de Louvain (Catholic University Louvain) and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Catholic University Leuven) became two separate universities in 1968. UC Louvain was built in 1971 in a new city: Louvain-la-Neuve.
Francis will address the professors in Leuven, a mainly Flemish-speaking university, and is expected in his speech to give attention to the question of migrants. In past decades, Belgium has welcomed migrants from many countries.
On Saturday, Sept. 28, the Argentine pope will go to Louvain-la-Neuve, to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Brussels to address the bishops (including emeritus bishops), priests, deacons, consecrated persons, seminarians and pastoral workers.
That afternoon, he will go to the French-speaking Catholic University of Louvain, known as Université Catholique de Louvain, to address the students and is expected to focus part of his talk on the protection of the environment.
He will conclude the day by meeting Jesuits working in Belgium at Saint Michael’s College.
On Sunday morning, Sept. 29, his last day in Belgium, he will celebrate Mass in King Baudouin Stadium, beatify the Venerable Ana de Jesus (1545-1621), a Discalced Carmelite nun and important collaborator of St. Teresa of Ávila, who was one of the great foundational pillars of the Discalced Carmelite order.
Background on Belgium
The Kingdom of Belgium is bordered by the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg,France and the North Sea.
It has a population of more than 11 million. Sixty percent of the nation is Flemish; 40 percent is French. There is also a small German community. Tensions rose in the second half of the 20th century between Flemish speakers and French speakers, fueled by differences in language and culture and the unequal economic development of Flanders (the Flemish area) and Wallonia (the French area). This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching state reforms, resulting in the transition from a unitary to a federal constitutional arrangement by 1993. The country today is divided into three highly autonomousregions: the Flemish Region (Flanders) in the north, the Walloon Region (Wallonia) in the south, and the Brussels-Capital Region in the middle. But tensions have persisted.
Belgium's central location has meant that the area has been relatively prosperous, connected commercially and politically to its bigger neighbors. The country as it exists today was established following the 1830 Belgian Revolution, when it seceded from the Netherlands. Over the centuries, Belgium has been the battleground of European powers, as evidenced in the 20th century during the twoWorld Wars. It was also a colonial power, but its colonies of the Belgian Congo (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Ruanda-Urundi (today Rwanda and Burundi) gained independence in 1960 and 1962 respectively.
Belgium, an advanced economy, was one of the six founding members of what has today become the European Union. Brussels is also the de facto capital of the European Union, hosting the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the European Council, as well as being one of two seats of the European Parliament (the other being Strasbourg). Belgium was a founding member of NATO and also hosts NATO headquarters.
Since 1930, Belgium has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. Germany invaded Belgium in 1914 during World War I and again in 1940 during World War II.
Nearly 72 percent of Belgium’s population is Catholic. Protestants make up 2.3 percent of the population, 7 percent are Muslims, and 20 percent declare themselves to be non-religious.
Christianity first came to Belgium at the beginning of the 4th century, but it spread in the 7th century thanks to the efforts of monks from the Anglo-Saxon world, most notably St. Willibrord, and from Ireland and Scotland, who set up many monasteries.
Over the centuries, the Catholic Church in Belgium has given saints and many missionaries to the church, as well as theologians such as Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P., Cardinal Leo Josef Suenens and Jacques Dupuis, S.J.
Belgian Catholics are today spread over eight dioceses (plus a military ordinariate) and 3,656 parishes. They are served by 22 bishops (including emeriti), 3,743 priests (1,677 are from religious orders), 577 permanent deacons, 5,045 nuns and 4,803 catechists.
Mr. Van Lierde said “most Belgians want their children baptized, but far fewer receive first Holy Communion, not many get married in the church. After Covid, fewer also ask for church funerals. The monarchs are Catholic and invited the pope to visit the country.”
“There is more enthusiasm and interest in Pope Francis’ visit in the French side [of the country] than in the Flemish one,” Mr. Van Lierde told me. He attributes this mainly to the sexual abuse scandal. While there were cases of abuse revealed at the end of the 1990s, he said, the crisis exploded in 2010 with the revelation that the bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, had abused his nephew over many years, first as a priest and later as bishop. The disclosure led to the revelations of about 500 other cases in one month (most of them in the Flemish part).
The Vatican allowed the bishop to retire two years before the statutory age. Cardinal Godfried Danneels was later accused of attempted cover-up of this case, and this too damaged the church’s image in public opinion. The Vangheluwe case “had a disastrous impact on this Catholic nation,” Mr. Van Lierde said. People also feel that the Vatican was slow to take decisive action.
In March 2024, six months before his visit, after repeated requests from the country’s bishops and with the emergence of new evidence, Pope Francis removed Vangheluwe, 87, from ministry and laicized him.
On May 29, 2022, Pope Francis announced that he would make Luc Van Looy, 80, the emeritus bishop of Ghent, a cardinal in the August consistory. Soon after, however, Bishop Van Looy declined that designation, and on June 16 the Belgian bishops issued a statement that said: “The announcement of the creation of Monsignor Luc Van Looy, emeritus bishop, as a cardinal has provoked many positive reactions, but also criticism that as Bishop of Ghent (2004-2020) he did not always react vigorously enough against abuses in the pastoral relationship.”
It said the bishop asked the pope “to dispense with his acceptance of the appointment” so as “to prevent victims of such abuses from being hurt again as a result of his cardinalate.” It concluded, “Pope Francis agreed to his request to not be made cardinal.”
The Belgian church was again embroiled in controversy in late 2023 with the airing of two programs: a four-part TV documentary called “God Forgotten,” with testimonies from clergy abuse victims, and a podcast called “Kinderen van de Kerk” (The Children of the Church), produced by a Flemish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, that told the story of forced adoptions of children in Catholic institutions, with testimonies from mothers and their children who were adopted.
Mr. Van Lierde said Leuven University had invited the pope to come before this new round of abuse discussions began; the allegations were not anticipated. Now newspapers are reporting the victims’ experience, and Francis is scheduled to meet with 15 victim-survivors during his stay. The Belgian bishops chose the 15 survivors from among 80 survivors willing to meet with the pope, sparking discontent.
At present, Mr. Van Lierde said, “the atmosphere is “not so good in the Flemish part of Belgium, and is very focused on the abuse issue.” As happened in Ireland, he said, a small group wants to say “nope to the pope.” Furthermore, an organization of women “want to go all in white to the papal ceremonies to press for more rights for women.” A student action is being planned in Old Leuven during the visit, he said, “to get people to remove themselves from the baptismal list, as they no longer want to be Catholic [this movement began in 2021]. So one can expect some protests.” Francis is expected to address the abuse question when he speaks to the nation and to the bishops, he said, adding: “I hope he does.”
