Catholic Church in the Netherlands

Catholic Church in the Netherlands
St Catherine's Cathedral, Utrecht.
Type	National polity
Classification	Catholic
Governance	Episcopal
Pope	Pope Francis
President	Bishop Hans van den Hende
Primate	Archbishop Wim Eijk
Apostolic Nuncio	Aldo Cavalli
Region	Netherlands
Language	Dutch, Latin
Headquarters	St Catherine's Cathedral, Utrecht
Separations	Mennonites (1540) Dutch Reformed Church (1571) Old Catholic Church (1724)
Members	3,785,000
Official website	Episcopal Conference of the Netherlands

The Catholic Church in the Netherlands (Dutch: Rooms-katholiek kerkgenootschap in Nederland) is part of the worldwide Catholic Church under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. Its primate is the Metropolitan Archbishop of Utrecht, currently Willem Jacobus Eijk since 2008. In 2015 Catholicism was the single largest religion of the Netherlands.^[1] forming some 23%^[2][3] of the Dutch people, based on in-depth interviewing, down from 40% in the 1960s.

Although the number of Catholics in the Netherlands has decreased significantly in recent decades, the Catholic Church remains today the largest religious group in the Netherlands. Once known as a Protestant country, Catholicism surpassed Protestantism after the First World War, and in 2012 the Netherlands was only 10% Dutch Protestant (down from 60% in the early 20th century; defections are primarily due to rising lack of affiliation that started to occur two decades earlier than in Dutch Catholicism).^[4] There are an estimated 3.882 million Catholics registered (2015) by the Catholic Church in the Netherlands, 22.9% of the population^[5] down from more than 40% in the 1970s. The Catholic Church in the Netherlands has suffered an official membership loss of 650,000 members between 2003 (4,532,000 pers. / 27.9% overall population) and 2015 (3,882,000 pers. / 22.9% overall population),^[6] The number of people registered as Catholic in the Netherlands continues to decrease, roughly by half a percent annually.

North Brabant and Limburg have been historically the most Catholic parts of the Netherlands, and Catholicism and some of its traditions now form a cultural identity rather than a religious identity for people there. The vast majority of the Catholic population is now largely irreligious in practice (in line with the rest of the Dutch population). Research among self-identified Catholics in the Netherlands in 2007 showed that only 27% could be regarded as theist; 55% as ietsist, deist, or agnostic; and 17% as atheist.^[7] In 2015 only 13% of self-identified Dutch Catholics believe in the existence of heaven, 17% in a personal God and fewer than half believe that Jesus was the Son of God or sent by God.^[8]

Sunday church attendance by Catholics has decreased in recent decades to less than 200,000 or 1.2% of the Dutch population in 2006.^[9] More recent numbers for Sunday church attendance have not been published (with the exception of the Diocese of Roermond), although press releases have mentioned a further decline since 2006.

In December 2011 a report was published by Wim Deetman, a former Dutch Minister of Education, detailing widespread child abuse within the Catholic Church in the Netherlands: 1,800 instances of abuse "by clergy or volunteers within Dutch Catholic dioceses" were reported to have occurred since 1945.^[10]

A planned visit of Pope Francis to the Netherlands was blocked by cardinal Wim Eijk in 2014, allegedly because of the feared lack of interest for the Pope among the Dutch public.^[11]

History[]

Medieval period[]

St. Willibrord, Apostle of the Frisians and part of the Anglo-Saxon mission. He was the first Bishop of Utrecht.

From the 4th to the 6th century AD The Great Migration took place, in which the small Celtic-Germanic-Roman tribes in the Low Countries were gradually supplanted by three major Germanic tribes: the Franks, the Frisians and Saxons.

The most powerful of these were the Franks (who, at the time, resided between the Rhine and the Somme) and they converted to Catholic Christianity, during the reign of King Clovis I around 500 AD. Most of the region thus fell under the Frankish Kingdom and then the Carolingian Empire until the end of the 9th century. From the center of the Diocese of Tongeren-Maastricht-Liège, successively the cities of Tongeren, Maastricht and Liège, this part of the Low Countries was probably Christianized. According to tradition, the first Bishop of Maastricht, Servatius, was buried in this city in 384, though only from Bishop Domitianus (ca. 535) is it established that he resided in Maastricht.

The coastal Frisian Kingdom remained Germanic pagan but were eventually conquered by Charles Martel and incorporated into the Catholic Frankish Kingdom after the Battle of the Boarn in 734. The Northern parts of the Netherlands were converted as part of the Anglo-Saxon mission as Catholic Christians from the various kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England moved to the Continent, such as St. Willibrord, the Apostle of the Frisians and St. Boniface, who was martyred in Friesland. Both were active in the eighth century, having great impact on the conversion of the country. The areas in the Low Countries which would eventually become part of the modern Netherlands were part of Middle Francia and then Lotharingia, before eventually becoming part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation as part of the Burgundian Netherlands. Originally under the House of Valois-Burgundy by the end of the 15th century it was part of the Habsburg Netherlands as part of a vast Catholic Habsburg Empire dominated by the Kingdom of Spain.

Since the rise of Calvinism[]

Pope Adrian VI, to date the only Dutchman to reign as Pope. He held the Papacy from 9 January 1522 until his death on 14 September 1523.

Since the War of Independence the Catholics were systematically and officially discriminated against by the Protestant government until the second half of the 20th century, which had a major influence on the economical and cultural development of the southern part of the Netherlands. From the Reformation to the 20th century, Dutch Catholics had largely been confined to certain southern areas in the Netherlands where they still tend to form a majority or large minority of the population. However, with modern population shifts and increasing secularization, these areas tend to be less and less predominantly Catholic. Registered Catholics still form a slight majority in the most southern province of the Netherlands, Limburg (refer to the overview by diocese above).

After the Dutch Republic banned the Catholic religion in the 1580s the Netherlands became a mission territory under the canonical authority of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (the so-called Dutch Mission). The episcopal hierarchy was not restored until 1853.^[12]

Restoration of Catholic hierarchy[]

Religion in the Netherlands in 1849. Catholic-majority areas in green.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Catholics formed a separate social pillar, with their own schools, TV and radio broadcasting, hospitals, unions, and political party. They formed a coalition with orthodox Protestants, who also felt discriminated against. This pillarization and coalition government was important in emancipating the Catholics from their social exclusion. In the period between 1860 and 1960, Catholic church life and institutions flourished. This period is called "The Rich Roman Life" (Dutch: Het Rijke Roomse leven). During this period, the number of Catholics in the Dutch population grew to approximate parity with Protestants, as in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland, and Germany.^{[citation needed]}

Since the Second Vatican Council[]

After 1970, the emphasis on Catholic concepts and traditions such as hell, the Devil, sin, Confession, kneeling, catechesis, having the Host placed on the tongue by the priest, and the doctrine about widows' remarrying, divorce, and premarital sex rapidly disappeared; these concepts and traditions are rarely, if ever, found in modern Dutch Catholicism. A cultural divide is still found between the "Catholic" south and the "Protestant" north, but with a total of 1.5 million people and 20% of the industrial production in the Netherlands, the southern "Catholic" area BrabantStad has become one of the major economically important, metropolitan regions of the Netherlands.

In the 1980s and 1990s the church became polarized. The conservatives' main organization was Contact Roman Catholics. The liberals' main organization was the Eighth of May Movement (Dutch: "Acht Mei-beweging"), founded because of disputes about the papal visit in 1985; the Movement had a difficult relationship with the bishops, and disbanded in 2003.

Currently, Catholicism is still the single largest religion of the Netherlands with around four million registered members, 22.9% of the Dutch population in 2015.^[13][14] In 2006, in the Diocese of 's-Hertogenbosch (in the eastern part of North Brabant and in part of Gelderland), only 45,645 residents, mostly people over 65, attended Mass, only 2% of the total population in that area. In western North Brabant (the Diocese of Breda), the number of people associating themselves with Catholicism also strongly decreased. Church attendance is even lower in the west with only 1% of the West Brabantian population visiting churches in 2006.^[15]

Most Catholics live in the southern provinces of North Brabant and Limburg, where they used to comprise a majority of the population until at least the late 1980s. According to the church administration in 2010, two dioceses, s-Hertogenbosch and Roermond, still had a Catholic majority; it is notable that in 2005, SILA (Stichting Interkerkelijke Ledenadministratie) listed a significantly lower number of Catholics in these two dioceses. This shows a big disconnect between membership and actual adherence.

92% of Dutch Catholics support same-sex marriage and 3% oppose it. 95% of Dutch Catholics believe society should accept homosexuality, while 4% believe society should not accept homosexuality.^[16]

Child abuse scandal[]

In December 2011 a report was published by Wim Deetman, a former Dutch minister, detailing widespread child abuse within the Catholic Church in the Netherlands: 1,800 instances of abuse "by clergy or volunteers within Dutch Catholic dioceses" were reported to have occurred since 1945.^[10] According to the report "The risk of experiencing unwanted sexual advances was twice as great for minors in institutions as the national average of 9.7%. This finding reveals no significant difference between Catholic institutions and other institutions."^[17] In March 2012, however, it was revealed that left out were the cases of 10 children being surgically castrated after reporting being sexually abused to the police.^[10] It also emerged that in 1956 former prime minister Victor Marijnen, then chairman of a children's home in Gelderland, had covered up the sexual abuse of children. According to the Telegraph newspaper, he "intervened to have prison sentences dropped against several priests convicted of abusing children."^[10] The factuality of these claims is unclear, though. The Commission rejected all the claims.^[18]

Structure[]

Within the Netherlands the hierarchy consists of:

• Utrecht - Archbishop Willem Jacobus Eijk (since 2007)
  • 's Hertogenbosch - Bishop Gerard de Korte (since 2016)
  • Breda - Bishop (since 2011)
  • Groningen-Leeuwarden - Ron van den Hout (since 2017)
  • Haarlem - Bishop Jan Hendriks (since 2020)
  • Roermond - Bishop (since 2018)
  • Rotterdam - Bishop Hans van den Hende (since 2011)

Dioceses[]

Overview of Dutch dioceses

There are seven dioceses in the Netherlands.

For more demographic details by diocese, see the List of Catholic dioceses in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

These figures are the latest available as of Dec 31, 2010 from ecclesiastical statistics.^[22]

According to the church administration, in 2010 two dioceses – 's-Hertogenbosch and Roermond – still had a majority of Catholics in the population. It is notable that SILA (Stichting Interkerkelijke Ledenadministratie) published precisely for these two dioceses a significantly lower number of Catholics in 2005. Based on the SILA-numbers, in the diocese of Hertogenbosch in 2010 the population has no longer a Catholic majority. KASKI (Katholiek Sociaal-Kerkelijk Insituut / Catholic Social-Ecclesiastical Institute^[23]) found 23.3% of the population to be nominal Catholic in 2014,^[24] based on registration by the Catholic church.^[25] These numbers are significantly higher than the numbers of Catholic adherence found by Radboud University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (11.7% Catholic in 2015).^[26] This shows a big disconnect between membership and actual adherence. Especially the Catholic Church often claims that a quarter of the Dutch population is Catholic, pointing to the official statistics, but when questioned, fewer than half that number associate themselves with the Catholic faith. A lot of people still registered as members of a church are actually not religious (anymore), but for various reasons have not officially renounced their membership (yet) – a phenomenon known as 'belonging without believing'.^[27]

Part of a series on the
Catholic Church by country
show Africa Algeria Angola Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Comoros Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Djibouti Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Eswatini Ethiopia Gabon Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Ivory Coast Kenya Lesotho Liberia Libya Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius Morocco Mozambique Namibia Niger Nigeria Rwanda São Tomé and Príncipe Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Somalia Somaliland South Africa South Sudan Sudan Tanzania Togo Tunisia Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe
show Asia Afghanistan Bangladesh Bhutan Brunei Cambodia China East Timor Hong Kong India Indonesia Japan Kazakhstan Korea Kyrgyzstan Laos Macau Malaysia Maldives Mongolia Myanmar Nepal North Korea Pakistan Philippines Russia Singapore South Korea Sri Lanka Taiwan Tajikistan Thailand Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Vietnam
show Middle East Bahrain Cyprus Iran Iraq Israel Palestinian territories Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia Syria Turkey United Arab Emirates Yemen
show Europe Albania Andorra Armenia Austria Azerbaijan Belarus Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Czechia Denmark Estonia Finland France Georgia Abkhazia Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Jersey Kosovo Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Moldova Monaco Montenegro Netherlands North Macedonia Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia San Marino Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom England Northern Ireland Scotland Wales
show North America Antigua and Barbuda Bahamas Barbados Belize Canada Costa Rica Cuba Dominica Dominican Republic El Salvador Grenada Guatemala Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Panama Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Trinidad and Tobago United States
show Oceania Australia Fiji Kiribati Marshall Islands Micronesia Nauru New Zealand Palau Papua New Guinea Samoa Solomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu
show South America Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Guyana Paraguay Peru Suriname Uruguay Venezuela
Catholicism portal
v t

According to the Church's figures, Catholics became a minority in the Diocese of 's-Hertogenbosch in 2014. The number of parishes in the Netherlands has dropped between 2003 and 2014 from 1525 to 760.^[29]

Many remaining churches have found purposes outside the religious domain, like stores, apartment buildings and museums.

Notable Dutch Catholics[]

Notable Dutch Catholics throughout history include Pope Adrian VI, Ruud Lubbers, Henry of Gorkum, Hadewijch, Cornelius Loos, Jakob Middendorp, Hieronymus Bosch, Piet de Jong, Jan Harmenszoon Krul, Dries van Agt, Jan Steen, Casimir Ubaghs, Maxime Verhagen, Erasmus, and Joan Albert Ban.

See also[]

• Catholic Church in Belgium
• Catholic Church in Luxembourg

References[]