Career
After a course of studies at Rome, crowned by the Doctorate of Theology, he was in 1836 appointed Professor of Sacred Scripture and Oriental languages in the recently reorganized Catholic University of Leuven. This position he held till 1876, when he resigned his place to his pupil, T. J. Lamy. Beelen revived Oriental studies in Belgium, and introduced into that country Oriental printing by means of a complete font of Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic type, which he purchased.