“I ask your forgiveness.”
In the space between a “painful” 2011 and the opening of a 2012 of “purification,” the Catholic primate of Belgium and Archbishop of Brussels, André-Joseph Lèonard, extended a “mea culpa” for sexual abuse by members of the clergy. On behalf of a national church badly affected by the pedophile priest scandal, Monsignor Lèonard took responsibility for the sins of priests and religious “infidels,” while the church hierarchy in Belgium goes through a particularly difficult time as well, due to internal challenges by “dissidents.”
The “mea culpa” extended by Lèonard – a bishop who is very Ratzingerian in his sensibilities - comes at a time when the Belgian church hierarchy is particularly under pressure.
After the 2010 evisceration of the tomb of the prestigious Cardinal Leon-Joseph Suenens by the Belgian police in search of secret papers (a dramatic breakthrough of secular culture into Catholicism), the sorties went on constantly until the most recent in September, when, at the Court of Ghent, around seventy victims of pedophile priests publicly denounced the Belgian Conference of Bishops and the Vatican for doing nothing to prevent the alleged crimes that took place in the diocese of Bruges.
Up until a few months ago, the Belgian church was led by Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the prestigious primate who soon became “the great ogre” that the mass media believed to have worked to protect pedophile priests. These allegations also caused some clergy and faithful to call for reform: priestly celibacy, in particular, is seen as the triggering source of the abuse.
The Vatican asks Lèonard to hold firm, but it is not easy. Two months ago, the New York Times reported that in Buizingen, southwest of Brussels, a movement has arisen - a lay alternative to the official church to hold Mass when there are no priests available.
In Father Bosco’s church, in fact, the pastor died, and no young priest was found to replace him. And thus the faithful have created a new Catholic movement in which functions are celebrated by the laity.
Meanwhile, in the formerly Catholic country, over two hundred rebel priests, supported by thousands of lay faithful, have signed a document calling for the entrance of the divorced and remarried into communion, the ordination of married men and women, and allowing the laity to preach.
Among the signatories of this document are some prominent Belgian Catholics: Roger Dillemans, honorary president of the Catholic University of Leuven, Paul Breyne, governor since 1997 of the province of West Flanders (1.2 million inhabitants), Trees Dehaene and Agnes Pas, former president of the Inter-Diocesan Pastoral Council, and finally prominent priests such as John Dekimpe, Ignace Dewitte, and Staf Nimmegeers.
The statement mentions its grassroots basis, saying it has “broad support in all our dioceses.” Because, the promoters of the initiative say, “we are convinced that if we speak up as believers, the bishops will listen and be ready to move the dialogue forward on these urgently needed reforms.”
A year ago the violent storm struck the head of the Belgian Catholic Church, Andrè-Joseph Lèonard,, who had asked clemency for the elderly pedophile priests: from socialist Francophones to liberal Flemish-speakers, many were “outraged” by his statements about absolving those who had committed abuses, provided they are no longer in service. Bishop Lèonard’s proposal was considered “unacceptable” by the two socialist deputy members of the Special Commission for Pedophilia in the Church.