Godfried Cardinal Danneels
Encyclopedia

Godfried Maria Jules Danneels (born 4 June 1933) is a Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 cardinal
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...

 of the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

. He served as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and the chairman of the episcopal conference
Episcopal Conference
In the Roman Catholic Church, an Episcopal Conference, Conference of Bishops, or National Conference of Bishops is an official assembly of all the bishops of a given territory...

 of his native country from 1979 to 2010. He was elevated to the cardinalate
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...

 in 1983. His resignation at the age of 75 was accepted on 18 January 2010.

Early life and ordination

Born in Kanegem, Tielt
Tielt
Tielt is a Belgian municipality in the province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Tielt proper and the towns of Aarsele, Kanegem, and Schuiferskapelle.-History:Some traces of Gallo-Roman occupation have been found in this area...

, West Flanders, he was the eldest of six siblings. Danneels entered the Grand Seminary
Seminary
A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...

 of Bruges
Bruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....

 to become a priest
Priesthood (Catholic Church)
The ministerial orders of the Catholic Church include the orders of bishops, deacons and presbyters, which in Latin is sacerdos. The ordained priesthood and common priesthood are different in function and essence....

. He was ordained
Holy Orders
The term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to those individuals ordained for a special role or ministry....

 on 17 August 1957 by Emiel-Jozef De Smedt, Bishop of Brugge.

Professor and pastor

He studied Thomistic philosophy
Thomism
Thomism is the philosophical school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, his commentaries on Aristotle are his most lasting contribution...

 at the Higher Institute of Philosophy
Higher Institute of Philosophy
The Higher Institute of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Leuven was founded in 1889 by Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier to be a beacon of Neo-Thomist philosophy...

 in Leuven
Leuven
Leuven is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region, Belgium...

 and theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 at the Pontifical Gregorian University
Pontifical Gregorian University
The Pontifical Gregorian University is a pontifical university located in Rome, Italy.Heir of the Roman College founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola over 460 years ago, the Gregorian University was the first university founded by the Jesuits...

 in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. After obtaining his doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...

 in theology, he taught at the Bruges seminary and at the Catholic University of Leuven
Catholic University of Leuven
The Catholic University of Leuven, or of Louvain, was the largest, oldest and most prominent university in Belgium. The university was founded in 1425 as the University of Leuven by John IV, Duke of Brabant and approved by a Papal bull by Pope Martin V.During France's occupation of Belgium in the...

.

As a scholar, he carried out a profound study of the liturgy
Liturgy
Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

. The articles he wrote for the Dictionary of the Liturgy have made him famous throughout the Catholic world. Danneels was actively involved in writing Sacrosanctum Concilium
Sacrosanctum Concilium
Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, is one of the constitutions of the Second Vatican Council. It was approved by the assembled bishops by a vote of 2,147 to 4 and promulgated by Pope Paul VI on December 4, 1963...

, a document which initiated the liturgical
Liturgy
Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

 reform of the Second Vatican Council
Second Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...

.

Bishop

On 4 November 1977, Danneels was named Bishop of Antwerp by Pope Paul VI
Pope Paul VI
Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it...

. He received his episcopal consecration
Bishop (Catholic Church)
In the Catholic Church, a bishop is an ordained minister who holds the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders and is responsible for teaching the Catholic faith and ruling the Church....

 on the following December 18 from Cardinal Leo Joseph Suenens
Leo Joseph Suenens
Leo Jozef Suenens was a Belgian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussel from 1961 to 1979, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1962....

. Danneels was promoted to the Archbishopric of Mechelen-Brussel
Archbishopric of Mechelen-Brussel
Mechelen-Brussels is the Roman Catholic Primatial See in Belgium. It is also the name of the Ecclesiastical Province governed by the Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, which covers the whole of Belgium...

 on 19 December 1979 and thus the Primate
Primate (religion)
Primate is a title or rank bestowed on some bishops in certain Christian churches. Depending on the particular tradition, it can denote either jurisdictional authority or ceremonial precedence ....

 of Belgium and the Bishop of the nation's Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 military ordinariate
Military ordinariate
A military ordinariate is an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church, of Latin or Eastern Rite, responsible for the pastoral care of Catholics serving in the armed forces of a nation....

.

Cardinal

Daneels was created a Cardinal-Priest
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...

 of Santa Anastasia
Santa Anastasia
Santa Anastasia is a basilica church in Rome, Italy.Santa Anastasia was built in the late 3rd century - early 4th century, possibly by a Roman woman named Anastasia. The church is listed under the titulus Anastasiae in the acts of the 499 synod...

 by Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...

 in the consistory
Consistory
-Antiquity:Originally, the Latin word consistorium meant simply 'sitting together', just as the Greek synedrion ....

 of 2 February 1983.

Since 2001, Danneels has been a part of the permanent secretariat of the episcopal synod
Synod
A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...

. He is also a member of the Curial
Roman Curia
The Roman Curia is the administrative apparatus of the Holy See and the central governing body of the entire Catholic Church, together with the Pope...

 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , previously known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition , and after 1904 called the Supreme...

 and of the Congregation for the Clergy
Congregation for the Clergy
The Sacred Congregation for the Clergy is the congregation of the Roman Curia responsible for overseeing matters regarding priests and deacons not belonging to religious orders...

. Between 1990 and 1999, he was international chairman for Pax Christi
Pax Christi
-History:Pax Christi was established in France in 1945 as a reconciliation work between the French and the Germans after the Second World War. In 2007, it existed in more than 60 countries...

, a Catholic peace organisation. Danneels was awarded honorary doctorates by Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

 and the Catholic University of Tilburg
Universiteit van Tilburg
Tilburg University is an academic institution of higher education, specialising in the social sciences and law, located in Tilburg in the southern part of the Netherlands....

. In 1996, he underwent a major heart operation.

In 2003, Danneel's was voted the "most remarkable personality of the year" by Flemish television viewers. His mother tongue in this bilingual (or trilingual) country is Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

. But he also speaks English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

 fluently. In 2005 he also led the funeral service of Grand Duchess Josephine Charlotte of Luxembourg.

Regarding euthanasia, Danneels said on 13 April 2008:

"... it is a choice between two civilizations, a civilization of people who want to take control of themselves and a civilization with a god and place for superhuman elements ... it is an excrescence of a typical evolution, of a cancerous growth of consciousness that luckily woke up during Renaissance but that has taken cancerous proportions now, that broke away."

Concealment of child sex abuse

Perhaps Daneels' most difficult moment came in 1998, when a court found that the Belgian Catholic Church had failed to protect the victims of a paedophile priest. Danneels voluntarily testified in court, but denied that he had known anything about the abuse. It was the first time ever that a cardinal had appeared before a secular court in Belgium.

On 8 April 2010, Danneels, already retired, recommended temporary silence about a sex abuse case that had involved Bishop Roger Vangheluwe
Roger Vangheluwe
Roger Joseph Vangheluwe is the former Bishop of Bruges. He gained notoriety after admitting to having sexually abused two nephews over the course of a 15-year period while serving first as a priest and then as bishop, though the admission came after the statute of limitations for the crimes had...

 in the late 1970s to early 1980s, before Vangheluwe became a bishop. Daneels advised the victim, a nephew of Vangheluwe, to delay a public statement until Vangheluwe had retired. At another meeting Vangheluwe, in Danneels' presence, made a private apology, which the victim rejected and went public with his charges. On 23 April 2010, Bishop Vangheluwe resigned, admitting his guilt publicly. Four months later, Vangheluwe's nephew supplied tape recordings of the two meetings to two Belgian newspapers, which published them on 28 August 2010. One of the two newspapers, De Standaard, described Danneels' action as "containment, nothing more", saying that Danneels' "only aim is to avoid having the case made public so many years after the facts". The Belgian police then questioned Danneels with regard to the case, concerning which a priest had tried to alert him in about 1996 but had not been heeded.

Speaking through a spokesman, Toon Osaer, Danneels explained that he had been unprepared for the meeting and that his proposal that the victim remain silent was "an improvisation".

Papal conclave of 2005

Upon the death of Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...

 in 2005, Danneels was listed as a possible successor (or papabile) although with weakened credentials due to the fact that he was an archbishop of a country where abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

, euthanasia
Euthanasia
Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering....

 and same-sex unions had recently been legalized and where, under his watch, church attendance and pastoral vocations have dropped to historical lows.

Danneels participated
Cardinal electors in Papal conclave, 2005
The following is a list of the 115 cardinal electors in the 2005 papal conclave, arranged by region and, within each region, alphabetically. Two cardinals who were eligible to participate in the conclave, namely Adolfo Suarez Rivera and Jaime Sin, did not attend due to ill health.-Roman...

 in the 2005 papal conclave
Papal conclave, 2005
The Papal conclave of 2005 was convened as a result of the death of Pope John Paul II on 2 April 2005. After his death, the cardinals who were in Rome met and set a date for the beginning of the conclave to elect John Paul's successor. The conclave began on 18 April 2005 and ended on the following...

, which elected Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...

.

Retirement and succession

In 2008, Danneels reached the mandatory age of retirement and, on 18 January 2010, he was replaced as Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels by André-Mutien Léonard, "known as one of the most 'conservative' of the prelates of the Belgian Catholic Church".

External links

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