Two tales from one city show the challenges Pope Francis faces to retain his flock in Europe

Associated Press

HALLE, Belgium (AP) — Pope Francis will be visiting Belgium on a trip starting Thursday, facing a flock ravaged by countless scandals of priest sexual abuse and dwindling in the face of modernity, where women and gays insist on an equal role and rights. Nowhere is that reality more tangible than in the city of Halle, just south of Brussels, where a woman now presides over the sacrament at a small but packed Don Bosco church while the main Sunday Mass at the city’s big Catholic basilica stands more than half empty.