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VATICAN CITY — VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Thursday started his journey to once-strong bastions of Christianity within the coronary heart of Europe in an effort to reinvigorate a Catholic flock that’s dwindling within the face of secular tendencies and abuse scandals which have largely emptied the continent’s magnificent cathedrals and village church buildings.
Francis landed mid-morning Thursday in Luxembourg, the European Union’s second-smallest nation, with a inhabitants of some 650,000 folks, and its richest per capita. He arrived underneath stormy skies and blustery, damp situations, days after the 87-year-old pope canceled his audiences due to a slight flu.
Francis greeted journalists at first of Thursday’s flight however declined to stroll down the aisle to greet them one after the other as he sometimes does. “I don’t really feel as much as the journey. I’ll greet you from right here,” he stated, referring to the journey down the aisle. The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, stated the choice was as a result of logistics of the plane, with only a single aisle, and the brief length of the flight, and was not a mirrored image of Francis’ well being.
After assembly with Luxembourg’s political leaders, Francis will communicate to the nation’s Catholic monks and nuns. The venue is the late-Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame, which was constructed within the early 1600s by Francis’ personal Jesuit order and stands as a monument to Christianity’s lengthy and central place in European historical past.
Francis is more likely to dwell on Europe’s position previous, current and future — significantly as struggle rages on European soil — throughout his visits to Luxembourg and Belgium, the place he arrives later Thursday and stays by means of the weekend.
The journey is a much-truncated model of the 10-day tour St. John Paul II made by means of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands in 1985, throughout which the Polish pope delivered 59 speeches or homilies and was greeted by lots of of 1000’s of adoring trustworthy.
In Luxembourg alone, John Paul drew a crowd of some 45,000 folks to his Mass, or some 10% of the then-population, and officers had predicted one million folks would welcome him in Belgium, in response to information experiences on the time.
However then as now, the pinnacle of the Catholic Church confronted indifference and even hostility to core Vatican teachings on contraception and sexual morals, opposition that has solely elevated within the ensuing technology. These secular tendencies and the disaster over clergy abuse have helped result in the decline of the church within the area, with month-to-month Mass attendance within the single digits and plummeting ordinations of latest monks.
Bruni stated that by touring to the 2 nations, Francis will possible wish to supply “a phrase to the center of Europe, of its historical past, the position it desires to play on this planet sooner or later.”
Immigration, local weather change and peace are more likely to be themes throughout the four-day go to, which was organized primarily to mark the 600th anniversary of the founding of Belgium’s two most important Catholic universities.
In Luxembourg, Francis has a high ally and pal within the lone cardinal from the nation, Jean-Claude Hollerich, a fellow Jesuit.
Hollerich, whom Francis made a cardinal in 2019, has taken on a number one position within the pope’s multi-year church reform effort because the “normal rapporteur” of his large synod, or assembly, on the way forward for the Catholic Church.
In that capability, Hollerich has helped oversee native, nationwide and continental-wide consultations of rank-and-file Catholics and synthesized their views into working papers for bishops and different delegates to debate at their Vatican conferences, the second session of which opens subsequent week.
Final 12 months, in one other signal of his esteem for the progressive cardinal, Francis appointed Hollerich to serve in his kitchen cupboard, often called the Council of Cardinals. The group of 9 prelates from across the globe meets a number of occasions a 12 months on the Vatican to assist Francis govern.
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Casert reported from Brussels. AP researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed from New York.
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Related Press faith protection receives help by means of the AP’s collaboration with The Dialog US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely liable for this content material.
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