Pope Francis has demanded that sexually abusive clergy be judged and their bishops stop covering up their crimes as he ended a troubled visit to Belgium by responding to the outrage over the scandal in the country that has devastated the church’s credibility.

Speaking to 30,000 people in Brussels on Sunday in an address which drew applause repeatedly as the crowd took in what he was saying, Francis told them: “Evil must not be hidden. Evil must be brought out into the open.”

He deviated from his prepared homily to respond to the meeting he held with 17 abuse survivors on Friday night, where he heard first-hand of the trauma and suffering they endured and the tone-deaf response of the church when they reported the crimes.

Belgium has had a wretched legacy of abuse and cover-up, none more symbolic of the church’s hypocrisy than the case of Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe. He was allowed to quietly retire in 2010 after he admitted that he had sexually abused his nephew for 13 years.

Francis only defrocked him this year – 14 years later – in a move clearly seen as finally dealing with a problem before his arrival in Belgium.

But once in the country, he could not escape the criticism.

Belgium’s king demanded the church works “incessantly” to clean up the scandal, and the prime minister insisted victims’ needs be placed first, in a remarkable dressing-down from the leadership of the once-staunchly Catholic country.

In his homily, Francis said: “In the church there is room for everyone, everyone, but everyone will be judged and there is no place for abuse. There is no place for the covering up of abuse.

“I ask the bishops not to cover up abuse. Condemn the abusers and help them to recover from this disease of abuse.”