Sermons hit ill Ostend language war

From our Correspondent in Brussels
BELGIUM'S bitter language war has spilled over
into Church services. Last Sunday, priests in the predominantly Flemish-speaking town of Ostend had to appeal from the pulpit for Flemish demonstrators to leave their churches. The demonstrators were protesting against the use of French in the sermons.
Some 30 people were involved in incidents in two churches when they began to pray loudly in Flemish as soon as the priest started to preach in French. Upon the priests' asking them to leave, they did so. Reports that priests were forced to abandon Masses because of the uproar were denied by official Belgian
Sources.
It was only a few weeks ago that the Bishop of Bruges, Mgr. de Smedt. a member of the Secretariat for Christian Unity, decided that one-third of each Sunday sermon in his diocese should be in French during the summer period for the benefit of the many French-speaking holidaymakers there. He also decided that some services should be conducted completely in French for visitors.
Minority
Extremists among Flemish nationalists have seen this as the thin end of the wedge on the part of French-speaking Belgians to impose their own language on them. This is in spite of there being Masses said in Dutch in the French-speaking parts without any incident.
One Belgian observer told the CATHOLIC HERALD this week that the demonstrators, whose numbers have been falling off over the last few weeks, were hoping to gain some political leverage by causing disturbances in the tourist areas. They represent an extreme minority of the Flemings and are generally condemned by most people.
The whole question of antipathy between the French speaking Walloons in the South of Belgium and slightly more numerous Flemings in the North originated mainly in the last century.
After the defeat of Napoleon, the Great Powers of the time decided that the Austrian Netherlands, as Belgium was then known, should he merged with Holland to form a buffer State against France. The Catholic Belgians did not take to their largely Protestant Dutch overlords and after a rebellion they finally became independent in 1831.
Not enough
Although Walloons and Hemings are largely Catholic, differences of temperament, tradition and culture, crystalised in the language barrier, soon made themselves felt. Certainly up until 50 years ago most official and army business, education and law was carried on in the minority language of French. Over the years the Flemings have achieved equality in the recognition of language. The question of which regions in which each language was to be dominant was settled only a few years ago. Flemings also have their own colleges and a university. This, for the more extreme Flemings, is not enough. They would prefer either federal independence for Flanders or even a separate Flemish State. The incidents in Ostend are another example of sporadic outbreaks on their part.