Brussels. The prime minister of Belgium attacked Pope Francis on Friday for the Catholic Church’s terrible legacy of sexual abuse and cover-up, demanding “concrete measures” to clean up the past and put the interests of the victims ahead of those of the institution. in a forceful welcome to the pontiff at the beginning of his official visit.

Prime Minister Alexander De Croo’s speech was one of the harshest addressed to the pope on a trip abroad, where the delicate dictates of diplomatic protocol often leave criticism out of public speeches. But even King Philip of Belgium had harsh words for Francis, demanding that the Church work “incessantly” to atone for crimes and help victims heal.

His tone highlighted the rawness of the scandal in Belgium, where two decades of abuse revelations and systematic cover-ups have devastated the credibility of the church hierarchy and contributed to the widespread decline of Catholicism and the influence of the Catholic Church. the powerful Catholic church.

Francis applauded at the end of De Croo’s speech and is expected to meet with victims privately later in the day. “This is our shame and humiliation,” he acknowledged in an improvised response.

“Today, words are not enough. We also need concrete measures,” De Croo said before the Argentine pontiff and an audience made up of members of royalty, clergy and politics at Laeken Castle, the residence of the Belgian royal family.

“Victims need to be heard. They need to be in the center. They have the right to the truth. “The faults must be acknowledged,” he added. “When something goes wrong, we cannot accept it being covered up (…) In order to look to the future, the Church must clean up its past.”

Revelations about the horrific abuse scandal in Belgium have come to light in dribs and drabs for a quarter of a century, and in 2010 the Vatican allowed the country’s longest-serving bishop, Roger Vangheluwe of Bruges, to resign without further ado. no punishment after admitting that he had sexually abused his nephew for 13 years.

Francis did not dismiss Vangheluwe until earlier this year, removing a source of lingering anger among Belgians before his visit.

Victims and activists say those findings are just the tip of the iceberg and that the true scope of the scandal is much greater. Police returned to the church documentation they had seized in raids in 2010, dashing hopes of a criminal investigation.

The Pope also referred to abuse in his speech, insisting that the Church was “firmly and decisively addressing” the problem, implementing prevention programs, listening to victims and accompanying them in their recovery.

But after stunning rebukes from the prime minister and the monarch, Francis went off script to express the institution’s shame over the scandal and its commitment to ending it.

“The Church must be ashamed and ask for forgiveness and try to resolve this situation with Christian humility and do everything possible to ensure that it does not happen again,” he stated. “Even if there was only one (victim), it would be enough to be ashamed.”

Victims, for their part, have demanded the Church do more, including implementing robust reparation programs to compensate them for their trauma and pay for the lifelong therapy many need. Some wrote a letter demanding these reparations, which they plan to deliver to the pontiff in their private meeting.

The prime minister, the king and the pope also referred to a new ecclesiastical scandal that is shaking Belgium, that of the so-called “forced adoptions”, which are similar to previous revelations about what are known as mother and baby homes in Ireland.

From after World War II until the 1980s, many single mothers were forced by the Belgian Church to give their newborn children up for adoption. Many times, mothers could barely see their babies before the nuns took them away, and they were given up for adoption in a process that included payments.

It is almost impossible for adopted people to now know who their biological mothers are, since the records disappeared years ago.

Francisco said he was “saddened” by these practices and noted that this crime was “mixed with what was unfortunately the predominant opinion in all parts of society at that time.”

“Many conscientiously believed that they were doing something good for both the child and the mother,” he noted, referring to the social stigma that weighed on a single mother in a Catholic country. And he noted that he prays that the Church “sheds light” on the problem and does not manipulate the Gospel to “draw false conclusions that cause suffering and exclusion.”