Roman Catholicism in Norway

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Roman Catholicism in Norway. The Roman Catholic Church in Norway is part of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and the Curia in Rome.

There are about 46,000 Catholics in the country, 70% of whom were born abroad. The country is divided into three Church districts – the Diocese of Oslo and the prelatures of Trondheim and Tromsø and 32 parishes.

The Bishop of Oslo participates in the Scandinavian Bishops Conference.

Contents 1 Origin 2 Reformation 3 Legalization 4 References

[edit] Origin

The Catholic Church in Norway is as old as the kingdom itself, dating from approximately 900 A.D., with the first Christian monarchs, Haakon I from 934.

The country is considered to have officially converted upon the death of the king St. Olav at the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030.

The subsequent Christianisation took several hundred years and was largely the work of Anglo Saxon missionaries, the Norwegian Church has been considered the only daughter of English Catholicism. Cardinal Nicholas Breakspear, later Adrian IV, established a church province in 1152, the archbishop's chair in Nidaros (Trondheim). The prosperous years of the High Middle Ages were followed by decline for Church and nation alike, although Norwegian Catholicism retained much of its vitality.

[edit] Reformation

The people were largely unprepared for the Lutheran Reformation imposed by the Danish king from 1526 to 1536. Church property and priests' personal properties were confiscated by the crown. Catholic priests were exiled and imprisoned unless they submitted to conversion to the Danish king's faith. Fr. Arason of Holar was martyred (executed for his faith) in 1550 and the Bishop of Hamar was imprisoned until his death in 1542. Monasteries were outlawed until the 1800's, and to this day there are no male monasteries (and only a few female monasteries) in all of Norway.

Many traditions from the Catholic middle ages were consequently continued for centuries. In the late 18th century and into the 19th c., a strict and puritan interpretation of the Lutheran faith, inspired by the preacher Hans Nielsen Hauge, spread through Norway, and popular religious practices turned more purely Lutheran.

The Catholic church per se, however, was not allowed to operate in Norway between 1537 and 1843, and throughout most of this period, Catholic priests faced execution. In the late 16th century, a few incidents of crypto-Catholicism occurred. Christiania (Oslo) had an illegal but tolerated Catholic congregation for a few years in the 1790s.

[edit] Legalization

The first parish after the Reformation was established in the capital in 1843; a few years later Catholic places of worship were opened in Alta (Finnmark), Tromsø and Bergen. Most Norwegian Catholics have a foreign background which partly explains the once popular prejudice that Catholicism is something alien. Religious sisters working in hospitals and schools did much to overcome anti-Catholicism and Catholic authors such as Sigrid Undset and Hallvard Rieber-Mohn O.P. also contributed to this. Protestants and Catholics were brought closer together in firm opposition to the Quisling regime during the German occupation (1940-45).

[edit] References

• Catholic Church in Norway's website
• Kjelstrup, Karl [1943]. Norvegia catholica : moderkirkens gjenreisning i Norge : et tilbakeblikk i anledning av 100-årsminnet for opprettelsen av St. Olavs menighet i Oslo, 1843-1943 (in Norwegian). Oslo: Oslo apostolic vicariate, 418. 
• Brodersen, Øistein Grieve [1943]. Norge-Rom, 1153-1953 : Jubileumsskrift, 800 år siden opprettelsen av Den norske kirkeprovins (in Norwegian), 49.