Roman Catholicism in the Netherlands

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The Catholic Church in the Netherlands is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and curia in Rome. Although the number of Catholics in the Netherlands has decreased in recent decades, the Dutch Catholic Church is by far the largest religious group in the Netherlands. Once known as a Protestant country, nowadays Protestants make up only about 18 percent of the Dutch population. There are an estimated 4,406 millions Catholics (31 December 2005) in the Netherlands, 27.0 percent of the population. The number of parishes has decreased from 1,744 in 1990 to 1,442 in 2005. Roman-catholic church attendance has also decreased in recent decades but recently has remained steady at roughly 340,000 or 2 percent of the Dutch population in 2005 (source KASKI – the official Dutch Catholic statistics source at http://www.ru.nl/kaski/kerkelijke/statistiek/).

[edit] Dioceses

There are seven dioceses in the Netherlands.

Church membership and church attandance by diocese

diocese	church members	church members in % of population	Number of churchgoers	churchgoers in % of population
Groningen Leeuwarden	± 110,000	6.2 %	12,435	0.7 %
Utrecht	± 774,000	19.7 %	63,850	1.6 %
Haarlem	± 478,000	17.1 %	37,160	1.3 %
Rotterdam	± 537,000	15.1 %	40,610	1.1 %
Breda	± 458,000	41.3 %	24,920	2.2 %
s Hertogenbosch	± 1,178,000	57.5 %	87,190	4.3 %
Roermond	± 871,000	76.9 %	77,695	6.9 %

The population of the two southern dioceses (Den Bosch and Roermond) is in majority Roman-Catholic.

see also: List of Roman Catholic dioceses of the Netherlands

[edit] History

After the Reformation, 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 a furthering secularization, these areas tend to be less and less predominantly Catholic. Catholics still form a majority in the two southern provinces of the Netherlands, Noord-Brabant and Limburg, refer the overview by diocese above.

Historically In the old days, catholics have been treated as second class citizens as they formed a minority in the dominant Protestant Netherlands. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth they formed a separate social pillar, with their own schools, TV and radio broadcasting, hospitals, unions and political parties. They formed a coalition with orthodox Protestants, who also felt discriminated. This pillarization and coalition government was important in emancipating the Catholics from their social exclusion.

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 Church Hierarchy was not restored until 1853.

Within the Netherlands the hierarchy consists of:

Archbishopric Bishopric

• Utrecht - Archbishop Adrianus Johannes Simonis (since 1983)
  • Den Bosch - Bishop Antonius Lambertus Maria Hurkmans (since 1998)
  • Breda - Bishop Martinus Petrus Maria Muskens (since 1994)
  • Groningen-Leeuwarden - Bishop Willem Jacobus Eijk (since 1999)
  • Haarlem - Bishop Jozef Marianus Punt (since 2001)
  • Roermond - Bishop Frans Jozef Marie Wiertz (since 1993)
  • Rotterdam - Bishop Adrianus Henricus van Luijn (since 1994)