The pope visited Leuven

The pope came to visit Leuven at the end of September. He was invited for the 600th anniversary of our university, which is the one of the oldest (western scientific) universities in the world and the oldest "catholic" one with historic ties to the Vatican...which is currently sometimes regretted or difficult.

A pope visit is controversial, and I hesitated whether I'd go downtown, and I also hesitated if I'd post anything online. I feared a backlash of comments and critics, which I would understand. I hesitated because I understand and support the criticism on all the atrocities that the Catholic Church is guilty of.  I'm not searching for euphemisms to describe how for centuries the Catholic Church has performed power abuse, participated endorsed and organized slavery, helped organize genocide (eg running the residential schools in Canada), have destroyed the lives of thousands of men and women through sexual abuse and now structurally and continuously fails to (want to) act upon it. 

I'm raised catholic, and I'm raising my children catholic for the simple reason that the bible (new testament) can be summarized as a message of love and pure values.  And that I also know personally a lot of people in this "church" structure that embrace these values, even though the overall global structure can demonstrate a hypocrite contradiction to them. 

When Beertje showed interest in the live tv arrival of the pope at the airport and expressed his wish to go and see the visit downtown, I explained that some of his friends might oppose to this.  I've used the papal visit to discuss the atrocities of the church to them.  

But the pope is still a world leader (unfortunately?) and therefore such a papal visit at a stone's throw of your living room is historic.  I remember the papal visit in the 80ies which was a huge gathering: my parents both were in the field in St Denijs Westrem (currently the IKEA parking lot :)) with their school classes.  It's been over 30 years now since the last papal visit in Belgium and I doubt my children will get to see another one in their lifetime.  Given the speed that the Catholic Church has become irrelevant in our country, I doubt he'll come back.  I don't think my children will get another opportunity to see the head of the Catholic Church anymore if they don't go hang out in Vatican city.

So we headed downtown with mixed feelings. I do feel I need to justify going. We discussed and wondered if Trump would go for an announced stroll downtown, whether we'd go. 

At just 10min walk from our home, the street was closed at the University historic hall and we saw the tiny white Fiat 500 parked, which we had seen entering the city an hour before live on tv. Unlike previous popes that had nice big BMW's, this one chose to always ride in a small Fiat 500.  I also googled the number plate.  It is always SCV 1 : Status Civitatis Vaticanae.  So I wondered if someone in the preparation of this papal visit had to request this number plate and had it registered in Belgium :).  But surely it is not a regular standardize European number plate format, so something's fishy here. And on Sunday during the mass Eucharist in the soccer stadium in Brussels, I noticed that the papal mobile, a different one than this car, also had a SCV1 number plate.  Ugh, isn't this number plate fraud in that case? At least if that other scooter would hit the public road. 

We had to cross over via the old Market to pass the security lines where everybody was searched to enter the secured pedestrian zone.  Apparently the restriction on umbrella's had been lifted, given the bad weather.  The zone was 2-3 lines thick of people, apparently significantly less than anticipated, but I was glad that the boys got to squeeze forward thanks to sympathetic people to the first line to get a good view.  

While the academic session in the university continued, and we watched a bit the live broadcast via our phones, I also amused myself to try to spot the security measures. I noticed police on the roofs but not the snipers that would be there. 
I was also amused by all the bodyguards that are all talking to their collar all the time. 

And then finally the academic session in the University Hall was over and the pope got on his scooter to have a tour downtown.  There was some weak applause when he came out and then he got scootered by. Right in front of us, he had a stop because some bodyguard handed him a baby from the crowd to get blessed. 

We returned right away like most people to leave via the market again as there was no reason to hang out as soon as the scooter had driven by us. But while walking in the direction of our home, the police escort gathered right next to us.  Surely enough the papal visit and tour was already over after 13 minutes outdoor, and the VIP caravan was ready to leave Leuven.  And so we got another papal wave on our way home.