VATICAN CITY — VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis on Thursday began a trip to the once-strong Christian stronghold of Europe’s heartland in an effort to revive a dwindling Catholic flock in the face of secular trends and abuse scandals that have largely emptied the region. the continent’s magnificent cathedrals and village churches.
Francis landed on Thursday mid-morning in Luxembourg, the second smallest country in the European Union, with a population of about 650,000, and the richest per capita. He arrived amid stormy skies and humid conditions, days after the 87-year-old Pope canceled an audience due to the flu.
Francis greeted reporters at the start of Thursday’s flight, but declined to walk down the aisle to greet them one by one as usual. “I’m not feeling the journey. I’m going to say hello from here,” he said, referring to the trip down the aisle. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said the decision was due to the plane’s logistics, only one aisle, and the short flight time, and not reflect Francis’s health.
After meeting Luxembourg’s political leaders, Francis will speak to the country’s Catholic priests and nuns. This place is the late-Gothic Notre Dame Cathedral, which was built in the early 1600s by the order of Jesuit Francis himself and is a monument to the long and central place of Christianity in the history of Europe.
Francis may reflect on Europe’s past, present and future role – especially when it comes to wars on European soil – during his visit to Luxembourg and Belgium, where he arrived on Thursday and will remain through the weekend.
The trip is a 10-day version of the St. John Paul II conducted through Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands in 1985, when the Polish Pope delivered 59 speeches or homilies and was greeted by hundreds of thousands of faithful. .
In Luxembourg alone, John Paul attracted a crowd of about 45,000 at Mass, or about 10% of the population, and officials had predicted a million people would welcome him in Belgium, according to news reports at the time.
But now, the head of the Catholic Church faces indifference and even hostility to the core of the Vatican’s teachings on contraception and sexual morality, an opposition that only increases in the next generation. That secular trend and the crisis over clerical abuse have helped shrink the church in the region, with monthly Mass attendance in the single digits and the ordination of new priests.
Bruni said that by traveling to the two countries, Francis may want to give “words to the heart of Europe, to its history, to the role it wants to play in the world in the future.”
Immigration, climate change and peace are likely to be themes during the four-day visit, which is organized mainly to mark the 600th anniversary of the founding of Belgium’s two main Catholic universities.
In Luxembourg, Francis has a key ally and friend in the country’s sole cardinal, Jean-Claude Hollerich, a fellow Jesuit.
Hollerich, who became cardinal Francis in 2019, has played a central role in the Pope’s many years of church reform efforts as the “general rapporteur” of the great synod, or meeting, on the future of the Catholic Church.
In that capacity, Hollerich has helped oversee local, national and continental consultations of rank-and-file Catholics and synthesized their views into a working paper for bishops and other delegates to discuss at the Vatican meetings, the second session of which opens next week. .
Last year, in another sign of his respect for progressive cardinals, Francis appointed Hollerich to serve in his kitchen cabinet, known as the Council of Cardinals. A group of nine prelates from around the world meet several times a year at the Vatican to help Francis rule.
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Casert reported from Brussels. AP researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed from New York.
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