In Brussels, the head of the Catholic Church asked the bishops of Belgium to “take up this cause to advance it”. “A file will be put together and will take up the arguments in favor and against” the beatification of the very pious monarch. “Then, this file will be completed by a Vatican ministry. Ultimately, the final decision rests with the Pope. It may therefore still take a very long time” before King Baudouin is elevated to the rank of the Blessed, underlined the professor .
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The former CD&V senator thus took the example of Father Damien (1840-1889), whose beatification procedure finally ended on June 4, 1995. Beatified by Pope John Paul II, the Belgian Jozef de Veuster , who dedicated his life to lepers forcibly exiled to the island of Molokai, was subsequently canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in October 2009.
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For Rik Torfs, however, there is no guarantee that King Baudouin’s file will actually lead to a beatification. Certain procedures are sometimes discreetly abandoned.
“Traditionally, a miracle must also be attributed” to the candidate, “but we have already seen beatifications without a miracle,” continued the specialist. Previously, the Vatican used to wait 50 years after the death of the future Blessed to “analyze the file with more distance”.
Beatification is a solemn act by which the pope, via a pontifical decree, recognizes that a person of Christian faith has practiced the virtues advocated by the Christian faith in an exemplary, or even heroic, manner.
King Baudouin is known to be a very pious figure in the Belgian monarchy. The sovereign and his wife Queen Fabiola were never able to have children. In March 1990, the fifth Belgian king announced to the government that he would not sign the law which partially decriminalized abortion, although it had been passed a few days earlier in parliament.
“The Pope considers the King’s position against the voluntary termination of pregnancy important,” commented the doctor of canon law. “He would have in his time opposed the law more than the Belgian bishops, which the Vatican appreciated,” concluded Mr. Torfs.
