Only days after he returned triumphant from a tour in the Asia-Pacific region where adoring crowds walked the jungle for days to see him, Pope Francis visited the European faithful in Belgium. The reception was more fraught.
Before he even arrived in Belgium on Thursday, sexual abuse survivors criticized him for scheduling little time to see them.
On Friday, the country’s prime minister told the pope that the church had “severely damaged” the public’s trust after sexual abuse accusations and cover-ups.
On Saturday, a Catholic university where Francis held a meeting “deplored” the pope’s “conservative positions on the role of women in society.”
And on Sunday, the pope said doctors who helped women have an abortion were “hit men,” causing outrage, including from Italian doctors who pointed out that abortion is legal in Italy within the first 90 days of pregnancy.
The Vatican did not respond to a request for comment on how the trip went, but on the plane returning to the Vatican after the trip, the pope objected to the criticism he received, saying the Catholic University of Louvain released its statement as he spoke. “It was pre-written,” he said, “and this is not moral.”
New York Times
