A Belgian court has ordered Cardinal Jozef De Kesel and Archbishop Luc Terlinden to pay about $1,600 each to Veer Dusauchoit after she was denied entry to a deacon formation program.
Dusauchoit, a 62-year-old from Herent, has long been actively involved in her local parish, which lacks a resident priest, and she leads various parish activities.
In June 2023, under Cardinal De Kesel’s leadership, Dusauchoit applied for the archdiocesan four-year diaconal formation program but was rejected. Her second application in October 2023, after Archbishop Terlinden assumed leadership, was also denied. Dusauchoit argued that her rejection was solely based on her gender, violating gender equality enshrined in the Belgian constitution.
The court’s spokesman, Luc De Cleir, said that the archbishops made an error in assessing Dusauchoit’s application. He said “It only concerns admission to a training course, not the question of effective appointment as a deacon.”
A spokesman for the Mechelen-Brussels archdiocese told the German Catholic website katholisch.de that they are reviewing the verdict and will decide on their next steps. The archdiocese reiterated that the Church’s teachings reserve ordination to men.
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