René Stockman, the superior of the Congregation of the Brothers of Charity is removed from his administrative functions.
With more than 50 schools, 12 psychiatric hospitals, 15 orthopedagogical centers, some 12,500 employees and a property portfolio of nearly 200 million euros, the “company” of the Brothers of Charity is unquestionably a heavyweight in Flanders. Even if it is intimately linked to it legally, the company nevertheless differs from the “family”, that is to say the congregation, founded in 1807 by Pierre-Joseph Triest in Ghent, where the headquarters of the Belgian regional.
The latter has become over the years an international network today directed from Rome by René Stockman who has been, since 2000, the 11th Superior General. Originally from Assenede, this doctor of public health recently entered into open conflict with the Belgian branch, which in his view is guilty of authorizing euthanasia within its establishments, under certain conditions and with extreme caution. The Belgians persisting in their point of view, the sanction fell in 2020: the institutions of the Brothers of Charity might no longer be considered “Catholic”.
Alongside this ideological conflict, another one, of a financial nature, was discreetly going on. Fearing a possible excommunication, the Brothers of Charity had prudently lodged a million euros in a foundation and found themselves sued by René Stockman for whom such subtraction was intolerable. The Belgian Brothers, for their part, accused their superior of bad management and reproached him for multiplying initiatives in developing countries, without first securing their funding.
This lack of transparency added to a fairly authoritarian management ended up move the vatican who has just withdrawn all his administrative functions from René Stockman, who nevertheless remains in place until the election of his successor.
D’après « Het Nieuwsblad »
