Pope Francis on Thursday began his trip to once-strong bastions of Christianity in the heart of Europe in an effort to reinvigorate a Catholic flock that is dwindling in the face of secular trends and abuse scandals that have largely emptied the continent’s magnificent cathedrals and village churches.Francis landed mid-morning Thursday in Luxembourg, the European Union’s second-smallest country, with a population of some 660,000 people, and its richest per capita. Francis arrived under stormy skies and blustery, damp conditions, days after the 87-year-old pope canceled his audiences because of a slight flu.
Francis greeted journalists at the start of Thursday’s flight from Rome but declined to walk down the aisle to greet them one by one as he typically does.“I don’t feel up to the trip. I’ll greet you from here,” he said, referring to the trip down the aisle. The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said the decision was due to the logistics of the aircraft, with just a single aisle, and the short duration of the flight, and was not a reflection of Francis’ health.Francis later seemed in fine spirits as he met separately with Grand Duke Henri and Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Luc Frieden at the duke’s palace.Migration, climate change and peace are likely to be themes during the visit, which continues later Thursday with Francis’ arrival in Belgium.EU figures show that barely half of Luxembourg inhabitants, or 52.6%, are native citizens, with 37.2% coming from other EU nations like Portugal and 10.2% from outside the EU.After his meetings, Francis will speak to the country’s Catholic priests and nuns. The venue is the late-Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame, which was built in the early 1600s by Francis’ own Jesuit order and stands as a monument to Christianity’s long and central place in European history.
