New Head Bishop of Belgian Church, Appointed by Pope Francis, Says Women's Ordination is "negotiable."

Bishop Jozef De Kesel of Bruges has been named by Pope Francis to succeed Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard as Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and the effective leader of Belgium’s Catholic Church. Ordained in 1972, Dr De Kesel is regarded as a protégée of Cardinal Godfried Danneels, who resigned in 2010 shortly before it emerged that he had attempted to persuade a survivor of sexual abuse against speaking publicly or pressing charges against the survivor’s abuser and uncle, Bishop Roger Vangheluwe.

The author of a doctoral thesis on the liberal German Lutheran theologian Rudolf Bultmann, Dr De Kesel has taught at a teacher-training centre at the University of Leuven and the seminary in Ghent. Auxiliary Bishop of Mechen-Brussels from 2002, before succeeding Dr Vangheluwe in 2010, he has called for a relaxation of celibacy for priests and said that women’s ordination is “negotiable."

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