Brussels university wants Vatican’s envoy summoned over pope’s abortion remarks

The Free University of Brussels (VUB) is urging the Belgian government to call the Vatican to account over statements by Pope Francis comparing doctors who perform abortions to hitmen.

“An abortion is a murder. Doctors who do that are — allow me to use that word — contract killers,” Pope Francis told journalists on his flight returning to Rome on Sunday following his visit to Belgium, which was overshadowed by the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.

In an opinion piece for Belgian newspaper De Standaard published Thursday, VUB Rector Jan Danckaert said the pope’s statement “not only insults the doctors who perform abortions, but also Belgium and its population.”

He said the VUB and its university hospital are calling on the Belgian government to summon the Vatican’s ambassador to Belgium, Franco Coppola, over the remarks.

“It is actually unheard of that a foreign head of state — because that is what Pope Francis is — assumes the right to attack a law of another and moreover democratic country. And to accuse the doctors who apply this law in practice of murder,” Danckaert wrote.

While the pope’s position on abortion is not surprising and he has used the same exact words before, his remarks come at a sensitive time for Belgium.

The Belgian parliament last week decided to freeze a long-debated bill that would expand abortion access from 12 weeks to 18 weeks of pregnancy. Bart De Wever, the Flemish nationalist politician tasked with forming the federal coalition government, said in a statement that this is to “guarantee the serenity of the negotiations” as the parties he is trying to include in the Cabinet are divided on the issue.

While Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo has not commented on the pope’s abortion remarks, outgoing Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden expressed outrage earlier this week, calling the comments “unnecessarily hurtful to women and care providers.”

Abortion in Belgium has been legal since 1990 after the deeply Catholic King Baudouin abdicated for a day to allow the abortion law to go through.

During his visit to Belgium last week, the pope visited King Baudouin’s tomb and praised his decision to not sign a “murderous law.” The pontiff also announced that he had started the beatification process for King Baudouin on Sept. 29.