LETTER FROM BRUSSELS

Leaving for Rome on September 29 after an official visit to Belgium, Pope Francis spoke to journalists about "the criminal law" authorizing "hitmen" – that is, doctors – to carry out abortions. While this comment wasn't exactly new coming from him, its impact was significant when repeated in a country that has been debating for years whether to extend the legal time limit for abortion and even decriminalize it altogether.

Moreover, the head of the Catholic Church had also just announced his intention to begin the beatification procedure for King Baudouin, who died in 1993. Three years earlier, this very Catholic head of state had refused to sign a law decriminalizing abortion approved by Parliament and even threatened to abdicate if forced to do so. Only a sleight of hand prevented the outbreak of a major institutional crisis. A legal expert suggested the use of an "inability to reign," which enabled the government to ratify the bill in place of the king, who resumed his role after 36 hours...

Unsurprisingly, Jorge Mario Bergoglio's remarks sparked the fury of the Centre d'Action Laïque (Center for Secular Action), and five Masonic Grand Lodges reacted by describing the statement as "brutal interference by a religious authority in the affairs of state." Jan Danckaert, rector of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, denounced "perfidious remarks that run counter to democratic laws" and could, in his view, lead to a diplomatic incident. Sensing the coming storm, the outgoing prime minister, Alexander De Croo, declared in Parliament on October 3 that "the time when the Church dictated the law in our country is, fortunately, far behind us." He then "invited" the apostolic nuncio to a meeting, the details of which remain undisclosed.

Catholics also reacted and confessed their sadness or dismay. One of the most high-profile reactions came from Céline Fremault, 50, a former minister and MP from the Christian Democratic Party. On October 1, in an open letter to the pope, she described herself as "baptized, a believer, educated at the breast of the values of the Gospel, a member of the Church since [her] birth, faithful to the 'people of God.'"

She explained that in 2000, she had to undergo a medical abortion, as the child she was to give birth to was not viable. "'My Church,' which I had called to be at my side in this totally unknown moment for a young woman of 26, was not present for this suffering: It saw fit to start praying so that I would not commit the irreparable, that is, 'take life,'" she wrote. Since then, she has devoted part of her time to facilitating the mourning of parents who have experienced the loss of an unborn child. Hurt by the words of the head of the Church, she told him that "'hitmen,' though highly qualified both medically and humanely, had made it possible, through their work, to preserve [her] body, namely [her] uterus, to enable it to welcome four other pregnancies."

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