Moules et Frites Express

The rumour mill has been rife this morning with the story that Mgr André-Mutien Léonard is poised to become the next archbishop of Mechelen/Malines-Brussels, Belgium’s most prominent diocese. VaticanistaAndrea Tornielli has posted on this in Italian here, as has Gregor Kollermorgen at the New Liturgical Movement (English) and our friend Rocco Palmo over at Whispers in the Loggia. I posted on potential candidates for the Belgian episcopate at the beginning of December. Tornielli reckons the announcement could come any day now.

Mgr Leonard has been bishop of Namur since and could be poised to take on the most important see in the Belgian Church, currently occupied by Cardinal Godfried Daneels, who was once a protege of the progressive Cardinal Leo Joseph Suenens, a big mover in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

According to Tornielli Mgr Leonard is the considered to be the most traditional bishop in Belgium (which is probably not all that difficult). Tornielli cites a 2007 profile of Bishop Leonard in the progressive French magazine, Golias.