The bishops of Belgium have asked the sans-papiers to interrupt the hunger strike called by approximately 150 illegal immigrants in the churches they are occupying (some 40). The hunger strikers are pressing for regularization in the country. Msgr. Jozef De Kesel, auxiliary bishop of Brussels, has stressed that “the Church supports a dignified and humane approach to the precarious and often hopeless situation in which the sans-papiers find themselves” and said he was “shocked by the police operation in the church of Our Lady Immaculate, in particular because it was decided without consulting the Church, thus giving the impression that it had its approval or that of the parish”. Nonetheless, write the Belgian bishops in a press release, though understanding “the desperation of those who decide on such a gesture as a hunger strike, as members of the ecclesiastical community we cannot tolerate this form of protest in our churches”. They consider this form of protest “morally unacceptable” due to the dangers to which it exposes the health of those who adopt it. But the bishops ask those in charge of the occupied parishes “not to appeal to the intervention of the security forces” unless “in cases of extreme medical emergency”. Numerous illegal immigrants have occupied churches and the offices of other lay organizations in Belgium for several weeks now, to press for their position to be regularized. Their gesture is understood by the bishops, who have permitted them to take refuge in their community.
