Vatican officially opens beatification process for late Belgian King Baudouin

King Baudouin salutes during the playing of the Belgian national anthem on March 31, 1981. / Credit: Marcel Antonisse/Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Vatican City, Dec 23, 2024 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

The Vatican this month officially opened the beatification process of King Baudouin of Belgium, remembered as the humble leader willing to abdicate his throne rather than approve the decriminalization of abortion in his country.

“The Holy Father Francis, during his recent apostolic journey to Belgium, announced the opening of the cause of beatification and canonization of Baudouin, king of the Belgians,” said a Dec. 21 statement released by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.

The dicastery established a historical commission Dec. 17, composed of experts “in archival research and in the history of Belgium,” tasked with collecting and evaluating documentation regarding the life and virtues of the late king.

Baudouin, who witnessed a Belgium transformed by periods of social upheaval and growing secularism, was publicly recognized as a devout Catholic committed to both the Church and his country throughout his more than 40 years on the throne from 1951–1993.

Up until his death in July 1993 at the age of 63, Baudouin had reigned continuously for 42 years except for 36 hours in April 1990, when he refused to sign a law decriminalizing abortion in Belgium and was subsequently deposed from the throne with his consent.

However, due to his enormous popularity, the Belgian Parliament returned the crown to him just 36 hours later.

Remembered as a humble leader and a defender of the most vulnerable, especially unborn children, St. John Paul II described the fifth king of Belgium as a “great guardian of the rights of the human conscience.”

“[He was] ready to defend the commandments, and especially the Fifth Commandment: ‘Thou shalt not kill,’” especially with regard to the protection of the life of unborn children,” John Paul II said during a 1995 general audience.

During his apostolic visit to Belgium in September, Pope Francis visited Baudoin’s tomb in the royal crypt at Our Lady of Laeken in Brussels and praised him for the courage to choose to “leave his place as king in order not to sign a murderous law,” Vatican News reported.

According to Baudoin’s relatives, the late king’s “whole life was a testimony to the living Christ,” whose life of prayer and kindness particularly struck those who knew him. 

“It was his life of prayer, his spiritual maturity, and his love for God, which prepared him, without knowing it, to make such a decision [to abdicate his throne]. It was not something sudden,” they shared with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

“As he said, what we have to aspire to is to be saints. So he really wanted that and he tried to live that holiness throughout his life,” one of Baudoin’s relatives added.