The beatification of King Baudouin of
Belgium for his anti-abortion stance, which Pope Francis
recently said he wanted to accelerate, has a "black mark"
hanging over it in the shape of the assassination in 1961 by
Belgium-backed rebels of Congo independence leader Patrice
Lumumba, an African Cardinal said Tuesday.
"If the (beatification) dossier works for us, (it will prove) he
was a courageous religious politician," commented Cardinal
Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, President of the Symposium of African
Episcopal Conferences, in the daily briefing on the Synod.
"But there is this black mark," he added, referring to the
assassination of Lumumba, the first prime minister of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo and a martyr for the
pan-African movement.
"It is being studied, we remain open, we follow like everyone
else," said the cardinal.
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