57 Facts About Godfried Danneels

Godfried Maria Jules Danneels was a Belgian Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and the chairman of the Episcopal Conference of Belgium from 1979 to 2010.

Godfried Danneels owed his vocation to the priesthood to a priest he had as a teacher in high school, Daniel Billiet.

Godfried Danneels obtained his bachelor's degree in June 1956, his license in 1958, and his doctorate in 1961.

Godfried Danneels was very much taken with these reforms, for in Belgium and the Netherlands many had been foreshadowed in liturgical experiments.

On 8 July 1969, Godfried Danneels was appointed assistant professor at the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic University of Leuven.

On 4 November 1977, Godfried Danneels was named Bishop of Antwerp by Pope Paul VI.

Godfried Danneels used the media, extensively and successfully, to expound his vision of Christian humanism.

Godfried Danneels was promoted to the Archbishopric of Mechelen-Brussels on 19 December 1979.

Godfried Danneels thus became Primate of Belgium, president of the Belgian Conference of Catholic Bishops, chancellor of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Universite catholique de Louvain and head of the nation's Catholic military ordinariate, at first as vicar, from 1987 as bishop.

Godfried Danneels was appointed to a number of pontifical congregations and councils.

Godfried Danneels was a member of the permanent secretariat of the episcopal synod and participated in a number of synods But his own enthusiasm about the government of the Church by the Vatican waned.

Godfried Danneels did not approve of the way Pope John Paul II restricted the role of bishops' conferences like CELAM and especially of CCEE.

Godfried Danneels even denied having a close relationship with King Baudouin, whom he saw often and whom he greatly admired.

Godfried Danneels participated in a number of synods of bishops and played a prominent role in some of them, notably in:.

Godfried Danneels chaired this synod, on "The Pastoral Situation in the Netherlands", together with cardinal Johannes Willebrands.

Godfried Danneels' speech attacking the cultural pessimism prevalent among a number of Roman prelates impressed many council fathers as well as Pope John Paul II, who allowed him to go beyond the allotted time.

Godfried Danneels' intervention was brief, but his presence at the synod was notable, as it followed a personal invitation by Pope Francis.

Godfried Danneels was aware of the risks of liberation theology and its political dimension.

Godfried Danneels was instrumental in preventing a condemnation of his friend Gustavo Gutierrez, and he was pleased that the follow-up of Libertatis nuntius, Libertatis conscientia, the Congregation's "Instruction of Christian Freedom and Liberation", did not proclaim a definitive condemnation of liberation theology.

Godfried Danneels had often discussed the moral dilemma the King faced, but denies mediating after the King's decision was taken.

However, whatever Godfried Danneels said in conversations with the King, before, during or after this constitutional crisis, he has always respected any "colloque singulier" he had with the King.

Since King Boudewijn is dead, Godfried Danneels took the secret of what he told the King to his grave.

Godfried Danneels flatly denied he did: "Ik heb alvast nooit geprobeerd hem om te praten".

Shortly after the law was published in the Belgian official journal, the Belgian bishops, including Godfried Danneels, issued a declaration in which they distinguished what is legally acceptable and what is morally desirable, and they unambiguously rejected the law morally.

Godfried Danneels has never wavered from the conviction that "a society that encourages abortion of those that are born in the margins of society or that do not have the chance to be loved abandons its humanizing role and ultimately condemns itself".

On 3 January 1999, Godfried Danneels became a member of St Gallen Group, in which he was to play a prominent role.

Godfried Danneels said as much on 11 April 2003 in a private letter to Guy Verhofstadt, whose government had approved this.

Godfried Danneels repeated these views ten years later, in a newspaper interview in which he said:.

Long before Belgium liberalized its law on euthanasia, in a press conference on 31 January 1994, Godfried Danneels gave voice to the Belgian bishops' opposition to the idea.

The issue resurfaced again, with a vengeance, in the spring of 2008, when famous Belgian author Hugo Claus chose euthanasia on 19 March and when three days later Godfried Danneels devoted his homily during the Easter Vigil to "the problem of suffering and death", without mentioning Claus by name.

Likewise from the beginning of his archbishopric, Godfried Danneels made almost yearly visits to the Taize Community.

Godfried Danneels mediated with the Vatican to make Pope John Paul II's visit to Taize on 5 October 1986 happen.

Godfried Danneels regularly met with Brother Roger, on whom the Catholic University bestowed an honorary doctorate in 1990.

Godfried Danneels was a member of the World Council of Religions for Peace, on which he sat until 2004.

Godfried Danneels was involved in the negotiations about the convent of the Carmelite nuns at Auschwitz after father Werenfried van Straaten had proposed, in 1985, to convert its temporary location in the former theater building into a full-fledged convent.

Godfried Danneels involvement lasted until 1989, when Rome decided the issue and promised the nuns would move out.

Between 1990 and 1999, Godfried Danneels was the international president of Pax Christi.

Godfried Danneels was a consistent and strong supporter of bishop Monsengwo's attempts to foster democracy in Zaire, mediating between Belgium, Rome and Kinshasa.

Godfried Danneels was instrumental in Monsengwo's being awarded an honorary doctorate by the Catholic University of Leuven on 2 February 1993 and he gave the Laudatio himself.

Godfried Danneels worked long and hard to thaw the relations between China and the Catholic Church.

When it finally happened, in March 2005, Godfried Danneels had to cut it short, owing to the death of pope John Paul II on 2 April.

Pope Benedict encouraged Godfried Danneels to continue his efforts and in March 2008 Godfried Danneels again went to China, where he addressed the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and where he was allowed to encounter a number of rural Catholic communities.

Godfried Danneels volunteered to testify in court, the first time ever that a cardinal had appeared before a secular court in Belgium.

Godfried Danneels said that he had known nothing about the abuse.

Godfried Danneels relieved him of his pastoral tasks and had him struck from the government's payroll.

In 2010, Godfried Danneels said that he did not remember this.

At that meeting Godfried Danneels advised the victim to delay a public statement until Vangheluwe had retired.

Godfried Danneels did not reveal this conversation to the Belgian bishops.

At another meeting Vangheluwe, in Godfried Danneels' presence, made a private apology which the victim rejected.

Great damage to Godfried Danneels's reputation was caused by the publication in De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad on 28 August 2010 of the transcript of tape recordings, made secretly, of the two meetings Godfried Danneels had had with the victim and his family.

Godfried Danneels did not contact the ex-bishop again to convince him of what was inevitable: his immediate resignation.

Godfried Danneels did not refer the matter to the Adriaenssens Commission.

On 4 June 2008, Godfried Danneels reached the mandatory age of retirement; his succession took time and did not go smoothly.

Godfried Danneels was not considered "papabile" before the 2013 conclave, in which he participated.

The newly elected pope Francis invited Godfried Danneels to appear with him on the balcony when he first appeared after the Habemus Papam.

At Pope Francis' inauguration, Godfried Danneels pronounced the formal prayer for the new pope in the absence of the protopriest, Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns.

Godfried Danneels later described the result of this conclave as "een persoonlijke verrijzeniservaring".