One of Africa’s most senior prelates has pushed back against Pope Francis’s plans to start the beatification process for Belgium's late King Baudouin, a devout Catholic who once resigned the throne for a day rather than sign a law legalising abortion.
Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo has raised a red flag about the “hasty beatification", on the grounds that there are still questions about Baudouin’s role in the assassination of independent Congo’s first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, in 1961. Ambongo has said that there is “a dark spot” regarding Baudouin’s legacy.
