The Belgian Red Cross Banishes Crucifixes

An email was sent from the Provincial Committee of the Red Cross in Liège to the 28 Red Cross houses in the Provience instructing the facilities "to respect the principles of the Red Cross, that is to say, no distinction given to religion or race," explained André Rouffart, president of the Red Cross house in Verviers, who found himself on the receiving end of a lot of criticism regarding this decision.  In this case, why not change the name and completely deny the origins of this institution founded by Henri Dunant in 1863?

One volunteer for the Red Cross answered RTL’s questions with, “Let things remain as they are. We used to say 'Christmas holidays,' now it's 'winter holidays.' The Christmas market in Brussels has become the 'Winter Pleasures’…"  In the Verviers office, remarks along these same lines have been pouring in.

This is not the first case of this sort in Belgium; the Socialist Mutuality Solidaris began in 2017 offering a coloring picture of St. Nicholas bringing gifts to well-behaved children. In the picture, the traditional cross on St. Nicholas’ miter has disappeared. According to Solidaris, the idea was “so that no child would be excluded”.

This refusal of the cross is sadly revealing of our secularized, de-Christianized times. And yet Christ has warned us, “He that shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him the Son of man shall be ashamed, when he shall come in his majesty, and that of his Father, and of the holy angels” (Lk. 9:26). For it is through the Cross that the power of God has been made manifest and confounded the wisdom of the world and the science of the learned (see I Cor. 1:18-19).