Belgian politicians over the Pope being Catholic

"Let's not forget to say this: abortion is murder," the Pope said. "Science says that just one month from conception, all the organs are present.

"A human being dies, a human being is killed. The doctors who take part in this are – allow me to use the word – they're hitmen. They are hitmen. On this point, there's no discussion. A human life is being killed."

The row comes at delicate time for the Belgian government. A measure currently before parliament would expand abortion access from the first 12 to the first 18 weeks of pregnancy, but it is on hold pending the outcome of negotiations to form a new coalition government after June elections failed to produce a clear result.

Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden also expressed outrage earlier this week, calling the Pope's comments "unnecessarily hurtful to women and care providers".

Won't anyone think of the baby killer's feelings? Calling it murder might make them sad!

Belgium's Prime Minister has announced that he will summon the Vatican's ambassador to protest remarks on abortion by Pope Francis at the close of a visit to the country last Sunday, which he claims constitute "unacceptable" interference in his country's domestic affairs.

"It is absolutely unacceptable for a foreign head of state to make such statements about democratic decision-making in our country," Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said during a session in Belgium's Chamber of Deputies.

"We do not need lessons on how our parliamentarians democratically approve laws," De Croo said. "Fortunately, the time when the Church dictated laws in our country is long gone."

De Croo had used his own meeting with Francis last Friday to publicly scold the Pontiff for the Church's handling of clerical sexual abuse scandals, which have hit Belgium particularly hard.

His decision to summon Archbishop Franco Coppola, the papal nuncio, or ambassador, to Belgium and Luxembourg over the abortion comments, came after the rector of the Free University of Brussels, Jan Danckaert, published an opinion piece in the leading Dutch-language daily asserting that the Pope's language "not only insults the doctors who perform abortions, but also Belgium and its population".

"It is actually unheard of that a foreign head of state — because that is what Pope Francis is — assumes the right to attack a law of another and moreover democratic country," Danckaert wrote in piece for De Standaard.

A European caliphate would be an improvement.