Belgium is fast becoming a 'not Catholic' nation, hemorrhaging members at an alarming rate for a number of reasons. RC plc claims that something in excess of fifty percent of the population is Catholic but the reality is that something less than fifteen percent attend mass and this number continues to shrink as Belgians become more secular and liberally minded.
So what would you do if you were the senior pointyhead in the Belgian franchise of RC plc and were faced with that as a reality?
I'd probably look at ways of making the Church relevant, reasonable and attractive without weakening the Gospel or throwing integrity out of the window. So let's take a look through the square window and see if that's what über pointyhead, Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard has done:
No! He's released a book which states that the AIDS epidemic is "A sort of inherent justice which comes about through the mistreatment of the profound nature of human love."
This is exactly the killer punch RC plc needed to develop a warm feeling (could that be the smell of burning flesh?) after details of hundreds of children who were abused appeared in a recent report.
If he was a Civil Servant he'd be promoted upstairs to somewhere full of dusty books where he could do no more harm.
If he was British, he'd probably find himself facing charges of incitement to hatred.
If he was an RC member, he'd probably be applauded for toeing the party line. Gosh, he is!
Is it any wonder that RC plc need the Anglo-Catholics to come across and bolster their number with episodes like this? Hardly the most sensitive or even scientifically accurate utterance is it?
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