Pope vows to eradicate ‘scourge’ of sexual abuse after responding to unusually candid call from Belgian PM

Laeken Palace, Belgium
CNN
—

Pope Francis has pledged to eradicate the “scourge” of sexual abuse by clerics after Belgium’s prime minister urged him, in unusually frank terms, to take concrete action.

Francis was speaking to political leaders Friday at the official residence of the king of Belgium, a country where devastating religious abuse scandals have erupted in recent years.

Before speaking, the Belgian king and Prime Minister Alexander de Croo raised the issue in their speeches, with the latter addressing the pope directly, in remarks that underscore the extent to which the abuse crisis has come to dominate Belgian national attention.

“You are committed to a fair and equitable approach. But there is still a long way to go,” the Prime Minister told Francis. “If something goes wrong, we cannot accept a cover-up. This harms the valuable work done by everyone. And that is why words are not enough today. Concrete measures are necessary. Victims must be heard. They must occupy a central place. They have a right to the truth.

He added: “To look to the future, the Church must clarify its past. »

In his remarks, Francis compared the abuse crisis in the Church to the biblical story of King Herod’s order that all male children aged two and over be executed.

“This is the shame, the shame that we all have to take charge of today and ask for forgiveness and solve the problem, the shame of abuse, of mistreatment of children,” the pope said. “We think of the time of the “Holy Innocents” and say: “What a tragedy!” What did King Herod do? But today, in the Church itself, there is this crime.”

He said that “the Church must be ashamed and ask for forgiveness and try to resolve this situation with Christian humility and put all possibilities in place so that this does not happen again.”

The 87-year-old pontiff, who is on a three-day visit to Belgium after spending a day in Luxembourg, insisted that abuse is a “scourge which the Church is tackling with firmness and determination by listening and accompanying those who were injured. , and by implementing a prevention program all over the world. »

Appalling revelations of sexual abuse by clerics have emerged in Belgium over the past 30 years, including the case of a former bishop who abused two of his nephews. The scandal came to a head during the pope’s trip, during which Francis was also scheduled to meet with 15 abuse survivors.

Meanwhile, the Belgian Church has also been embroiled in a forced adoption scandal, with an investigation by a Flemish newspaper indicating that Belgian nuns were allegedly involved in around 30,000 cases of newborns taken from their mothers between 1945 and 1980. Most cases involved young, unmarried women whose parents wanted their pregnancies to remain secret.

Francis also addressed this scandal in his remarks, saying: “I was saddened to learn of the practice of ‘forced adoptions’ that also took place here in Belgium between the 1950s and 1970s. In these harrowing stories, we see how the bitter fruits of wrongdoing and criminality became mixed with what was unfortunately the dominant opinion in all sections of society at that time.

The pope said these cases occurred because “the family and other actors in society, including within the Church,” believed that giving children up for adoption was a way of avoid the unfortunate stigma that weighs on “single mothers”.

He said the lesson of the adoption scandal is that the Church “never conforms to the predominant culture,” even if that culture superficially aligns with the Church’s values. This, he said, can happen in a “manipulative way” and cause “suffering and exclusion”.