Devotion to the Sacred Heart dying in Belgium

The article asks what future for the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart- "cultuel ou culturel" - a spiritual or cultural centre?

Only one answer Catholics can give!

The Fifth Largest Church in the world being turned into a showroom

What future for the Basilica?

The Basilica is celebrating a strange centenary. While every parish celebrates its major jubilee dates with sometimes exaggerated pomp, the national shrine is adopting a rather low profile. Admittedly, the whole of Sunday will be festive.

A strange centenary for the Basilica. While every parish celebrates its major jubilee dates with sometimes exaggerated pomp, the national shrine is adopting a rather low profile. Of course, the whole of Sunday will be festive. At 11am there will be a High Mass, in every sense of the word, presided over by Cardinal Danneels and attended by Queen Fabiola. Then there will be a string of events throughout the afternoon, but this emblematic anniversary in our country's history is not even on the official 175-25 programme!

The Basilica of Koekelberg actually suffers from a personality problem. While some would like to reinforce its spiritual dimension, others insist on the cultural and tourist appeal of the site.

The Koekelberg plateau is cursed? A hundred years ago, Leopold II laid the first stone with great pomp and ceremony, but the death of the King put the brakes on the construction of what he wanted to be "the Pantheon of Brussels". From Gothic, the project evolved into Art Deco, to the point of being the largest work of this style in the world, as well as becoming the fifth largest church in the world. This dual quality is highlighted in a superb album entitled "Koekelberg, monument art déco", signed by the president of the Friends of the Basilica, Raoul M. De Puydt, and the architect Jos Vandenbreeden. This sums up the adventure of a basilica that had to wait 65 years to be completed. It's a little-known building, because what you see on the outside is less than what you discover inside. And therein lies its tragedy! A veritable encyclopaedia of Belgian artistic development, it is not sufficiently well known in this respect, nor is it sufficiently well known from a religious point of view. For Fr Roland Francard, who runs a Christian comic strip centre there, "Koekelberg could be repositioned as a place of pilgrimage and returned to its original mission of promoting the cult of the Sacred Heart". Or, as some have suggested, it could become "the European basilica of the capital of the European Union". These are avenues that should not be overlooked, without forgetting its pluralist dimension, which means, for example, that in the basement there is a training ground for... caving. An activity that does not fundamentally detract from the spirit of the place. The same cannot be said for the recent 'marriage' of two major chocolate brands, which was not in the best taste for many Christians in the heart of the city.

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