Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo blasted Pope Francis on Thursday after the pontiff called abortion “murder” and the doctors who perform it “contract killers” when he was returning to Rome from Belgium last week.
“It is absolutely unacceptable for a foreign head of state to make such statements about democratic decision-making in our country,” De Croo said on Thursday.
Pope Francis held an informal press conference with reporters on his plane while traveling home from Belgium on Sunday.
“Women have a right to life, to their lives, and to the lives of their children,” the pope explained via the Catholic News Agency (CNA). “Let us not forget to say that. Abortion is a homicide. … It kills a human being. The doctors who carry it out are contract killers. … And there is no debate about that.”
De Croo, entirely unappreciative of Francis’ remarks, said Belgium “does not need lessons on how our parliamentarians pass laws democratically … Fortunately, the time when the Church dictated the laws in our country is long gone.”
The pope’s comments touched a nerve with Belgium’s head of state due in large part to a controversial law currently being debated in the Belgian Parliament, which would extend the time limit for when a woman could get an abortion from 12 weeks to 18 weeks.
One of the highlights of the pope’s trip to Belgium was visiting the tomb of Belgian King Baudouin in the royal crypt of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Brussels.
It was King Baudouin who, in 1990, was deposed by his own government for a day because he refused to sign a law legalizing abortion. The government enacted the abortion law in Baudoin’s absence and reinstated him the next day.
Francis lauded the former Belgian monarch as a man who would rather “leave his office as king in order not to sign a murderous law.”
“Belgium has a population of less than 12 million people and at least 16,000 children are killed in the womb every year, according to official figures,” CNA reports. “A peak was reached in 2011 with almost 20,000 deaths by abortion.”