By NICOLE WINFIELD
ROME (AP) — The Vatican has taken the first main step to implement Pope Francis’ wish that Belgium’s late king be beatified for having abdicated for a day rather than approve legislation to legalize abortion.
The Holy See’s saint-making office on Dec. 17 established a historical commission, made up of experts in Belgian history and archives, to begin investigating the life and virtues of King Baudouin, the Vatican said in a communique Saturday.
Francis surprised and even enraged some Belgians when, during his September visit to Brussels, he prayed at Baudouin’s tomb, denounced Belgium’s abortion laws as “homicidal” and announced he wanted to beatify the late king.
Doubling down on the issue during his in-flight press conference en route home, Francis called doctors who perform abortions “hitmen.”
In the days after, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo called Francis’ comments “totally unacceptable,” and summoned the Vatican’s ambassador to Belgium to complain.
“That a foreign head of state makes such a statement about democratic decision-making in our country is absolutely unacceptable,” De Croo said during question time in Parliament, according to Belgian media. “We have no lessons to learn about how our parliamentarians democratically approve laws. Fortunately, the time when the church dictated the law in our country is long behind us.”
Francis has strongly backed the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion and long equated it to murder or “hiring a hitman to solve a problem.” But his strong comments about abortion in Belgium only served to inflame an already troubled visit, given the Belgian church’s wretched legacy of clergy sexual abuse.
Baudouin became king after the abdication of his father, King Leopold. He abdicated for a day in 1990 rather than give his assent to a parliament-approved bill legalizing abortion. He died in 1993.
While praying at his tomb alongside Belgium’s current monarchs, Francis praised Baudouin’s courage and urged Belgians today to look to his example in rejecting a new legislative proposal to extend the legal limit for an abortion from 12 weeks to 18 weeks after conception.
The Vatican’s saint-making process usually takes years, decades or even centuries and typically begins when the local church ascertains an enduring reputation for sanctity among the faithful by a particular candidate.
An investigation into the life and virtues of the candidate follows, during which historians collect documentation and interview acquaintances and experts. If historians determine the candidate has lived a heroic life of Christian virtue, he or she can be declared venerable. The Vatican must then ascertain a miracle attributed to the candidate’s intercession for beatification, and a second miracle for the person to be declared a saint.
Martyrs are exempt from the miracle for beatification, and popes can bypass the process altogether and declare saints, as Francis has done on several occasions.
The convening of a historical commission suggests that church historians at the very least will conduct the research into Baudouin’s life. But the Vatican communique noted that the cause wasn’t originating as it normally would with the local Belgian church. Rather, the Holy See’s secretariat of state directed the Vatican’s saint-making office to open the process, suggesting Francis may be seeking to keep close tabs on the process and see it through quickly.
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