Bishops name reason for Pope's visit to Belgium

Pope Francis wants to travel to Belgium in 2024. The occasion is the 600th anniversary of the founding of the University of Leuven (Leuven/Louvain) in 2025, as the Belgian Bishops' Conference announced on Wednesday. The Pope himself announced the destination of Belgium in a TV interview broadcast in Mexico on Tuesday evening (local time); the trip has already been confirmed.

The bishops explained that Francis had accepted the invitation of the two university rectors. An exact date for the one- to two-day trip is still being worked out. The last time Pope John Paul II (1978-2005) visited Belgium was in 1985 and 1995. It is comparatively rare for a pope to visit a university on his own, most recently Benedict XVI with the Cistercian University of Heiligenkreuz in the Vienna Woods in 2007 and with a speech to the academic community of Charles University in the Vladislav Hall at Prague Castle in 2009.

The Catholic University of Leuven is a renowned centre of academic theology and especially missionary theology throughout Europe. It also played an important role in the reform debates of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Among others, the father of liberation theology, Gustavo Gutierrez (95), studied in Leuven. However, the university lost its reputation in the Flemish-Walloon language dispute of the 1960s. At that time, it split linguistically and spatially into two universities: Leuven in Leuven and Louvain in the planned town of Louvain-la-Neuve, 25 kilometres away. (KNA)