Pertiacious Papist links, with comments, to an Italian commentator's article on the current plight of Dutch and Flemish Catholicism:
pblosser.blogspot.com/2010/01/missionaries-needed-to-bring-light-of.htmlHere are some extracts from the article. I strongly suspect this is what Irish Catholicism will look like in another 20 years. I hope I am mistaken but I fear I am not:
chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1341594?eng=yEXTRACT BEGINS:
ROME, December 30, 2009 – Until half a century ago, Dutch and Flemish Catholicism seemed to be in solid shape, strong in its traditions, active in mission. One of its symbols was Fr. Jozef Damiaan de Veuster (1840-1889), an apostle to the lepers on an island in the Pacific, who was proclaimed a saint by Benedict XVI last October 11.
A few days ago, just before Christmas, another great symbol of this Catholicism died at the age of 95 in Nijmegen, Dominican theologian Edward Schillebeeckx, Flemish by birth, Dutch by choice.
However, this is a symbol not of the flourishing but of the astonishing deterioration that the Church of Flanders and of Holland has experienced over the past half century.
Schillebeeckx reflected this metamorphosis in his own life as a theologian. In the years of Vatican Council II and of the period immediately after the council, he was a star of worldwide impact, a champion of the new theology in step with the dominant culture. But then he was almost forgotten, even by the Catholics who had acclaimed him.
The disregard that fell over him went hand in hand with what was happening in the meantime in Dutch Catholicism, increasingly more forgetful of itself, increasingly secularized, increasingly in danger of disappearing.
The survey reproduced below is a snapshot of the current profile of the Catholic Church in Holland. A country in which today 41 percent of the population say that they have no religious faith, and 58 percent no longer know what Christmas is. A Church in which there are Dominicans and Jesuits who are theorizing and practicing Masses without priesthood or Christian sacrament, in which those present "consecrate" collectively, around a "table that is also open to people of different religious traditions."
EXTRACT ENDS
I think we are seing stirrings of the same tendency mentioned in the last paragraph here in Ireland. Some (I repeat some only) recent commentators on the dangers of clericalism seem to me to be suggesting implicitly or explicitly that the way to prevent a repetition of the recently-exposed horrors is to abolish the concept of a distinctive priesthood altogether and moving towards a "low church" Protestant-type view that the celebrant is simply someone chosen from the congregation to preside, and that this role can be taken by anyone, ordained or not.
ANOTHER EXTRACT
In reality, the fear of Eurabia seems to be simply a consequence of an even more radical phenomenon: the almost complete secularization of a country that, until the last war, was Catholic or Protestant, but in any case Christian. There has been a collapse: only 7 percent of Catholics now go to Sunday Mass. 16 percent of children are baptized. Holland has been a pioneer in gay marriage and euthanasia. "After Vatican Council II," says Professor Wim Peeters, a teacher at the seminary of the diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam, "the Dutch Church entered a profound crisis. The generation of the 1950's is gone, and it forgot to educate its children." In 1964, religious education in the schools was abolished. Two generations of Dutch have forgotten the ABC's of Christianity. In the register of the seminary of Haarlem, the number of priests plunges at the end of the 1960's. In 1968, there isn't even one. "I believe," Peeters says, "that we would have nothing to fear from Islam, if we were Christians. And it often seems that today the Dutch are afraid of everything: of having children, as they are of immigrants. But fear is the exact opposite of faith."
Still searching for Christmas, at number 40 on Oudezijds Voorburgwal, in the red-light district, there is a little gate. At the top floor of the Museum Amstelkring is a church, a clandestine church, dating back to the time of the Calvinist persecution that prohibited Catholic worship. In the attic are an altar, an organ, and ten pews to which the faithful came secretly. "Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder" is the name of the church: our dear Lord in the attic. Christ in the attic, you wonder, is this Christmas in Amsterdam?
And yet. In the seminary of Haarlem-Amsterdam there are 45 seminarians, in part the reflection of a strong Neocatechumenal presence. Bishop Josef Punt explains that today something has changed in comparison with the hardest crisis, twenty or thirty years ago. If in 1968 not even a single priest emerged from the seminary, he says, today every year in Holland as a whole 15 new priests are ordained, who keep the numbers at a stable level. In this diocese, a few hundred people each year ask to be baptized as adults. A new yearning can be perceived, generated by the sense of emptiness. Of course, we are talking about small numbers. We are a missionary Church. Everything has to be started all over again. In the monasteries outside of the city, we are creating centers of evangelization for those who, far from the faith, want to rediscover it. In our Catholic school in Haarlem, we are not able to accept all the requests for enrollment. I have the feeling that these parents, although they are no longer believers, are fascinated by the beauty of Christianity, and want it for their children."
EXTRACT ENDS
I think the point about failure to pass on a Catholic identity to future generations is an important one, and something that is well advanced in Ireland. We lost confidence in the message - partly because it was bound up with so much that was rigorist, authoritarian or downright evil, partly also because liberals trying to hide their own loss of belief from themselves muddied the waters.
The comment on the role of the Neocats in this mini-revival is interesting. Most of what I have heard about them has been hostile, accusing them of being cultlike and crypto-Protestant, but I can see how in such an environment their emphasis on strong communal bonds and on living as the poor might have appeal. Has anyone got any thoughts on them?
ANOTHER EXTRACT - ARCHBISHOP SIMONIS, FORMER PRIMATE, INTERVIEWED ON THE SITUATION
Q: In Haarlem, the bishop says that one is beginning to notice in the young people a sense of emptiness, the absence of that which has been forgotten . . .
A: It is true, many are aware of the emptiness. But they don't know how to go beyond it, they don't know what to ask, and of whom. They have not been taught to recognize and perceive the desire of their heart. In this sense I am convinced, like Bishop Punt, that the Dutch Church is truly called to be missionary. Two generations have been lost. It is a matter of starting over from the beginning, and within a culture that is indifferent to Christianity, among less than friendly media.
Q: You are 78 years old. You were a child at the time of the war. At the time, wasn't Holland a strongly Christian country? And afterward, what happened?
A: It was probably a Christianity too strongly marked by rigid moralism. It was followed by a rebellion that was radical, just as the character of the Dutch is radical. They are not capable of believing just "a little" in something. Aut, aut. They have become the opposite of what they were."
EXTRACT ENDS
I think the answer to the second question is strongly reminiscent of Ireland, and the first question indicates the position we are in now or rapidly getting to.
Anyone else on the board have any thoughts on this?