The Potential Pitfalls of a Papal Visit to Belgium

He has avoided what he calls the “big” countries of Europe, such as Spain and Germany, favoring the continent’s smaller nations. When he traveled to France in September, the Vatican pedantically insisted that he was visiting Marseilles, not the French Republic, to keep this notion intact. ...But Belgium is hardly on Europe’s periphery. In the colonial era, it controlled the vast territory known today as the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as chunks of China and Guatemala.