Pope Francis presided over a large mass at the national stadium in Brussels on Sunday. His visit to Belgium highlighted the growing gap between some Belgian Catholics and Rome, particularly on the place of women in the Church.
From dawn, armed with flags of Belgium and the Vatican, around 35,000 faithful took their places in the King Baudouin stadium in Brussels, where the Argentine pope arrived shortly before 9:45 a.m.
Under a radiant sun, the 87-year-old pontiff began a tour of the stadium aboard his “Papamobile”, acclaimed by the faithful who added their cries to the resounding music of the organs.
“What particularly touches me about Pope Francis (…) is that he transmits all kinds of values. He’s a bit like the pope of surprises, he’s among disadvantaged groups,” Olivier Caillet, 44, a Brussels resident who came with his wife and one of their sons, told AFP.
“And on the issue of migration he opens up possibilities, he tries to change people’s consciences so that we do not close borders like barriers,” he added.
During his three-day visit, the first by a pope to Belgium since John Paul II in 1995, Francis was questioned on the crisis of sexual violence against minors, the reception of LGBT+ people and the place of women in the Church. So many themes which highlighted the strong expectations of Belgian Catholics in the face of a doctrine sometimes considered too outdated.
On Saturday, his response on the place of women aroused disappointment and incomprehension within the French-speaking Catholic university of Louvain-la-Neuve (UCL), which criticized “a reductive position” in a press release.
“I don’t understand why women can’t become priests. It’s something that was established because it was anchored in society at that time, but now we have evolved,” confided Alice Vanwijnsberghe, an 18-year-old student from Leuven, who came to the mass. after attending a festival with 6,000 young Catholics.
She recognizes, however, that the subject is “delicate and complicated”, “because often, it can also create a schism in the Church”.
The pope must leave Brussels at midday and give his traditional press conference aboard the plane taking him back to Rome, where he is expected around 3 p.m.
