Roman Catholicism in the Netherlands

Roman Catholics in The Netherlands
year	population	Roman Catholics	percentage
1970		5.320.000	40,5
1980		5.620.000	39,5
1990		5,560.000	37,0
1995	15.493.889	5.385.258	34,8
2000	15.987.075	5.060.413	31,6
2005	16.335.509	4.406.000	27,0
2006	16.357.992	4.352.000	26,6
2007	16.405.000	4.311.000	26,3
2008	-	4.267.000	25,9

The Catholic Church in the Netherlands (Dutch: rooms-katholiek kerkgenootschap in Nederland (RKK)), is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope, Dutch Conference of Bishops, and curia in Rome. The Metropolitan Archbishop of Utrecht, currently Willem Jacobus Eijk, is Primate (bishop) of the Netherlands.

Although the number of Catholics in the Netherlands has decreased significantly in recent decades, the Dutch Catholic Church is today the largest religious group in the Netherlands. Once known as a Protestant country, in 2007 Dutch Protestants made up only 16.8 percent of the Dutch population (down from 60 percent in the early 20th century; defections primarily due to secularization). This is considerably less than the 26 percent of Dutch Catholics in 2007. There are an estimated 4.166 million Catholics (31 December 2010) in the Netherlands, 25.0 percent of the population down from more than 40 percent in 1970's. The number of Catholics in the Netherlands continues to decrease, roughly by half a percent annually, as do the number of Protestants. Muslims, however, continue to increase and are currently 6% of the population.

Sunday church attendance by Catholics has decreased in recent decades to less than 200,000 or 1.2 percent of the Dutch population in 2006 (source KASKI – the official Dutch Roman Catholic statistics source). 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.

Overview of Dutch dioceses

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

Dioceses

There are seven dioceses in the Netherlands. Two of the three southern dioceses, the Diocese of 's-Hertogenbosch and the diocese of Roermond, are majority Roman Catholic.

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

Church membership and Sunday church attendance by diocese (2006)

Diocese	Church members	Church members as % of population	Number of Sunday churchgoers	Sunday churchgoers as % of population
Groningen-Leeuwarden	109.000	6,1	7.385	0,4
Utrecht	766.000	19,4	34.155	0,9
Haarlem-Amsterdam	475.000	16,9	26.605	0,9
Rotterdam	531.222	15,0	26.205	0,7
Breda	454.000	40,9	13.960	1,3
's-Hertogenbosch	1.167.000	56,8	45.645	2,2
Roermond (2008)	817.000	72,8	36.640	3,3

History

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. Catholics still form a majority in the two southern provinces of the Netherlands, Noord-Brabant and Limburg (refer the overview by diocese above).

Historically nn the old days, Catholics were treated as second class citizens.

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.^{[citation needed]}

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth 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 1860-1960 Roman 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]}

In the 1980s and 1990s the church became polarized between conservatives, whose main organization was the Contact Roman Catholics, and liberals, whose main organization was the Eighth of May Movement, (Dutch: "Acht Mei-beweging") which was founded in 1985. The founding of the 8 May Movement was inspired by the disputes about the papal visit in that year to the Netherlands. The organization had a difficult relationship with the bishops. It was disbanded in 2003. In spite of that, tensions between conservative elements in the Catholic Church and more liberal elements have, as of 2011, not completely disappeared.

Pedophilia scandal

In December 2011 a report was published by Wim Deetman, a former Dutch minister, detailing widespread child abuse within the Catholic Church in Holland. 1,800 instances of abuse "by clergy or volunteers within Dutch Catholic dioceses" were reported to have occurred since 1945. In March 2012, however, it was revealed that cases of 10 children being chemically castrated after reporting being sexually abused to the police had been left out. 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." The factuality of these claims is unclear, though.

Structure

Within the Netherlands the hierarchy consists of:

Archbishopric Bishopric

• Utrecht - Archbishop Willem Jacobus Eijk (since 2007)
  • ’s Hertogenbosch - Bishop Antonius Lambertus Maria Hurkmans (since 1998)
  • Breda - Bishop Johannes van den Hende (since 2007)
  • Groningen-Leeuwarden - Bishop Gerard de Korte (since 2008)
  • Haarlem - Bishop Jozef Marianus Punt (since 2001)
  • Roermond - Bishop Frans Jozef Marie Wiertz (since 1993)
  • Rotterdam - Bishop Adrianus Henricus van Luijn (Apostolic Administrator (since 2011)