Pope Francis to Travel to Luxembourg and Belgium in September

The 87-year-old has slowed down his schedule in recent months as health issues have forced him to cancel some public appearances and travels, including a planned trip to Abu Dhabi in December. Francis, who often uses a wheelchair, has not traveled internationally since September 2023, opting instead to make pastoral visits within Italy to the northern cities of Venice and Verona in the first half of 2024.

Pope Francis first expressed his intention to visit Belgium during an interview with the Mexican television network Televisa broadcast in December. 

The Church in Belgium is grappling with a profound fallout from public outrage over the handling of clerical sexual abuse scandals. In March, Pope Francis laicized the bishop emeritus of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, many years after the former prelate admitted to repeatedly sexually abusing his nephews.

A previous archbishop of Brussels, the late Cardinal Godfried Danneels, reportedly called on a victim of Vangheluwe’s abuse to remain silent.

Archbishop Luc Terlinden of Mechelen-Brussels issued an apology to abuse survivors and expressed deep regret over the inclusion of reportedly three perpetrators of sexual abuse on an electoral list for the council of priests earlier this month. 

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According to the Church in Belgium’s 2023 annual report, 1,270 Catholics requested for their names to be removed from the baptismal register last year.

The pope received King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium in a formal audience at the  Vatican’s Apostolic Palace last fall. 

Philippe, who ascended the Belgian throne 10 years ago, holds the title “Rex Catholicissimus,” or “(Most) Catholic Majesty,” and the queen is one of only a few women in the world who can wear white, rather than the customary black, when meeting the pope, a papal privilege referred to as the “privilège du blanc.”

The confirmation of the pope’s trip to Belgium makes the possibility of the pope visiting New York at the end of September to address the United Nations less likely.