Lumumba ghost looms over beatification bid for Belgian King Baudouin

At the end of September, Pope Francis made a surprise announcement at a papal Mass at King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels that he was going to open the beatification process of Belgian monarch King Baudouin.

King Baudouin was known as a devout Catholic monarch, who ruled between 1951 and 1993 and was uncompromising in his ideals, a principle that led to a dramatic showdown with the Belgian government and forced him to give up the throne temporarily in the early 1990s, over a law legalising abortion.

“On my return to Rome, I will open the process for the beatification of King Baudouin,” Pope Francis told the crowd, who erupted into applause, on September 28, 2024.

The Holy Father described the monarch as a man of faith and a great example.

King Baudouin was the last Belgian monarch to be sovereign of the Congo before its independence in 1960.

Photo credit: File

But that news was not well received in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it evoked the memories of the brutal killing of prime minister Patrice Lumumba in 1961, blamed on Belgium.

In Kinshasa, Fridolin Cardinal Ambongo, Archbishop of Kinshasa and Chairperson of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (Secam), has voiced his reservations about the idea of canonising the monarch, citing Belgium’s alleged role in the death of Lumumba during Baudouin’s reign. 

Cardinal Ambongo told a press conference that the church should not be in haste in beatifying the king. 

“We’re going to look into the past. We know that something happened with the death of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. I believe that this is also the purpose of studying the cause of beatification,” said the cleric known for his oratory and speaking his mind.

“We don’t know the intricacies of his (the king’s) life. If the dossier evolves in the way that some people want, to present it for canonisation, we are open to it. But there’s still this file that could be called a black mark.”

On June 30, 1960, when the Congo gained independence, King Baudouin arrived in the capital Léopoldville, now Kinshasa, where rivalries between politicians were fierce.

Belgium, still smarting from being pushed out of the Congo allied itself with Lumumba’s enemies. Several historians claim that Belgium was involved in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in January 1961.

Patrice Lumumba in captivity in January 1961. Belgium returned, in June 2022, his remains, a tooth which was removed on January 17, 1961, the day the Congolese independence hero was assassinated. 

The suggestion of canonisation of the monarch is therefore stirring public debate, with opposition leader Martin Fayulu supporting Cardinal Ambongo’s sentiment. 

“It is essential to cite the responsibility of King Baudouin in the assassination of our national hero Patrice Lumumba before considering his beatification,” Fayulu said. “The Catholic Church must also reflect on the consequences of the actions of its ancestor Leopold II on our country.”

King Leopold II, a great-great uncle of King Baudouin, is viewed as a figure of Belgian colonisation in the Congo, which he considered his fiefdom and whose resources he plundered with abandon.

When Congo gained independence on June 30, 1960, then 29-year-old King Baudouin paid tribute to “the genius of Leopold II for his civilising work in the Congo,” causing dismay among the Congolese who remembered Leopold II as a “bloodthirsty” king.

The debate has raged over who should be blamed for Lumumba’s killing. Suspicion naturally fell on the Belgians, who had run their colony with unreserved cruelty before independence and bristled at Lumumba’s conception of national autonomy afterwards. 

Congo’s first prime minister Patrice Emery Lumumba in this photo taken in New York on August 2, 1960. He was assassinated in January 1961. 

Photo credit: File

Yet historians weave a web of international politics featuring many people of different races and nationalities ― well-meaning and ruthless, African, European, and American ― who bear some responsibility for the crime.

The most recent initiative by the Pope to elevate the Belgian King to a saint has divided opinion.

While announcing his intent, the pontiff praised Baudouin’s “courage” when he chose to “leave his post as king in order not to sign a homicidal law.” In 1992, the Belgian monarch abdicated for 36 hours in order not to sign the law legalising abortion, an act praised by the Pope.

It is now up to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints to study the case. In Brussels at the end of September, the Pope had asked the Belgian bishops to “commit themselves and bring this cause to a successful conclusion.” 

The last European monarch to be beatified by the church was the last emperor of Austria-Hungary, Charles I (1916-1918), who died in 1922 and was beatified by John Paul II in 2004. 

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