Vatican City (AP) – Pope Francis Pope Francis called on Thursday for Europe to be a beacon of peace amid war and a welcoming place for migrants, as he arrived in the heart of the continent to encourage the dwindling Catholic flock in former Christian strongholds.
Pope Francis arrived in stormy weather on Thursday morning in Luxembourg, the European Union’s second-smallest country and its richest per capita. The visit came after the 87-year-old pontiff canceled audiences in recent days due to Mild flu.
Pope Francis appeared to be in good shape, although he abandoned his traditional walk down the aisle on the plane to greet journalists during the flight from Rome.
“I don’t feel able to make the trip. I will greet you from here,” the pope said, referring to the aisle ride. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said the decision was made because there was only one aisle on the plane and the short duration of the flight, and was not a reflection of the pope’s health.
Francis was in Luxembourg for just a few hours before heading to Belgium, where he will stay for the entire weekend. Migration and peace are also expected to be on the agenda — with war raging on European soil. Francis is also expected to meet survivors of clerical sexual abuse. Given the poor record of the Belgian Church.
In his opening remarks to Luxembourg government authorities and the diplomatic corps, Francis recalled the country’s position as a geographical crossroads in Europe, where it was invaded during both world wars and was acutely aware of “conflicts and wars caused by exaggerated forms of nationalism and malignant ideologies.”
“Ideology is always the enemy of democracy,” he said in a departure from his speech. “Luxembourg can show everyone the benefits of peace as opposed to the horrors of war.”
Pope Francis also praised the country for its tradition of opening its doors to foreigners and said it was a model for Europe. But he urged it to use its wealth to help poorer countries so that its people would not have to flee in search of better economic opportunities in Europe.
“This is one way to ensure that fewer people are forced to migrate, often in inhumane and dangerous conditions,” he added. “We should not forget that wealth carries responsibility.”
Luxembourg, a landlocked country surrounded by Belgium, France and Germany, has a Christian history dating back to the fourth century and was once a staunchly Catholic state. But barely half of Luxembourg’s 660,000 people, or 52.6 percent, are native citizens now. More than a third come from other EU countries such as Portugal, and about 10 percent are from outside the EU.
The trip is a very shortened version of the ten-day tour that St. John Paul II made through Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands in 1985, during which the Polish pontiff delivered 59 speeches or homilies and was greeted by hundreds of thousands of devout faithful.
In Luxembourg alone, John Paul II drew a crowd of some 45,000 people to his Mass, or about 10 percent of the population at the time.
But even then, the head of the Catholic Church faced indifference and even hostility to the Vatican’s core teachings on contraception and sexual morality, opposition that only grew over time. These secular trends and the crisis over clerical abuse have helped drive the church into decline in the region, with monthly Mass attendance falling to less than 10 percent and the number of new priests falling sharply.
However, the narrow streets surrounding the Ducal Palace were filled with well-wishers who braved the morning rain to catch a glimpse of the pope in his popemobile.
Pope Francis urged people to have more children. “I won’t say more children and fewer dogs, that’s what I say only in Italy. But for you: more children,” he joked.
Pope Francis will address the country’s Catholic priests and nuns later Thursday. The ceremony will take place at Notre Dame Cathedral, built in the early 17th century by Francis’s Jesuit order and a monument to Christianity’s long and central place in European history.
In Luxembourg, Francis has a prominent ally and friend in the country’s only cardinal, Jean-Claude Hollerich, a fellow Jesuit.
In an article published this week in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Hollerich said immigration and the influx of people of other religions or no religion are behind the changes and challenges facing the Church in Luxembourg today.
“In 1970, 96 percent of Luxembourg’s population declared themselves Catholic. We could say that Christianity was the identity of the country,” Höllerich wrote. “But today, you can’t say the same.”
“We can no longer look back in the hope of restoring that church that stood half a century ago. We must try to find traces of God in today’s secularism,” he wrote.
Hollerich, who was named a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2019, has taken a leading role in the pope’s years-long efforts to reform the church as the “general rapporteur” of his Great Synod, or meeting, on the future of the Catholic Church.
In that capacity, Hollerich helped oversee local, national and continental consultations of ordinary Catholics, summarizing their views into working papers for discussion by bishops and other delegates at their meetings in the Vatican, which open their second session next week.
Last year, in another sign of his appreciation for the progressive cardinal, Francis appointed Hollerich to serve on his ministerial council, known as the Council of Cardinals. The council of nine priests from around the world meets several times a year at the Vatican to help Francis govern.
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This report was prepared by Casert from Brussels, with AP researcher Rhonda Schaffner contributing from New York.
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