BRUSSELS >> Pope Francis’ burdensome trip through Belgium reached new lows on Saturday when defiant Catholic university women demanded to his face a “paradigm change” on women’s issues in the church and then expressed deep disappointment when Francis dug in.

The Catholic University of Louvain, the Francophone campus of Belgium’s storied Catholic university, issued a scathing statement after Francis visited and repeated his view that women are the “fertile” nurturers of the church, inducing grimaces in his audience.

“UCLouvain expresses its incomprehension and disapproval of the position expressed by Pope Francis regarding the role of women in the church and society,” the statement said.

Francis’ trip to Belgium, ostensibly to celebrate the university’s 600th anniversary, was always going to be difficult, given Belgium’s wretched legacy of clerical sexual abuse and secular trends which have emptied churches.

— The Associated Press