More than 500 Belgian Catholics asked for “debaptism” from the Church in protest at Pope Francis’s description of doctors who perform abortions as “hitmen” and Belgium’s legalisation of the procedure a "murderous law.”
“I am writing to inform you of my decision to no longer be bound in any way to the Catholic Church,” said a the letter addressed to the apostolic nuncio in Brussels and the seven dioceses in Belgium. “Please consider this letter my formal act of departure from the Church.”
Its 524 signatories also denounced “the lukewarm response to the [violence] committed by certain members of the clergy against children and women, and the absence of concrete measures to support and compensate the victims”.
On 29 September, the Pope described abortion providers as “hitmen” – as he has in the past – while speaking to the press during his back to Rome after his visits to Luxembourg and Belgium.
In Brussels, he also honoured the late King Baudouin, who resigned for a day in 1990 to avoid signing Belgium’s first abortion bill into law. Francis visited Baudouin’s tomb, called him a “saint” and announced that the Vatican would open a cause to beatify him.
Belgian law permits abortion until the twelfth week of a pregnancy, but there is political pressure to extend this limit as women seeking an abortion after 12 weeks frequently travel to the Netherlands which permits later terminations.
Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said it was “totally unacceptable” for a head of state to criticise another country’s legal rights and protested to the nuncio. Two Brussels universities and an affiliated hospital accused the Pope of spreading hate against doctors acting within Belgian law.
“Debaptism” has spread in reaction to the sexual abuse scandal haunting the Belgian Church since 2010. Because there is no formal way to leave the Church, as there is in neighbouring Germany, protesters instead request that their names be erased from baptismal records.
Church officials maintain they cannot change an official document. Some add a line into the record saying the person has formally requested to leave.
The Pope’s visit came amid fervent debates on the role of the Church in Belgain society after the television mini-series Godvergeten (Forgotten by God) reopened the clerical sexual abuse scandal. Politicians have proposed ending to public subsidies for the Church.
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