Nothing to Change

Cure Henri Lejeune of the Belgian village of Braives was off to the Belgian Congo to help celebrate the double anniversary of the Bishop of Ruanda (the 50th of his baptism and 25th of his ordination). Last week Braives' 1,100 inhabitants passed judgment on Father Jean Kagiraneza, the priest who will substitute for him until Pere Lejeune comes back next month.

Said Wine Merchant Jules Leruth: "Everybody's delighted with him." Said

Druggist Henri Godfurnon: "He's an intellectual. You see that at once. But he's also very sympathique." Said Notary Alfred Cartuyvels, whose opinion is considered most important in the village: "A very satisfactory experiment."

But the slim young priest, hurrying about the parish in his round of confessions, Masses and visits to the sick, seemed to take in his stride the fact that his case was looked upon as an important precedent in Belgian Catholicism. Father Kagiraneza, 32, is as black as his own cassock; he was born in the brush of the Belgian Congo, where he was educated and ordained, and came to Belgium last fall to study schoolteaching. He finds his unexpected temporary assignment surprisingly easy.

"There's nothing to change," he says. "The Church is precisely the same in the Congo and here. This is proof for Catholics that the Church is one. In any other church, you go somewhere different and you have to change something."

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